The countdown to Adventures in Homicide and Heartbreak's release
begins! It will be officially released Tuesday May 12th, 2015! In today's blog I'll post an excerpt and tell you about a signed
paperback giveaway of Adventures in Homicide and Heartbreak!
Before I do that, FREEBIE ALERT! Make sure to join my mailing list! This month (May 2015) I'll be sending out the Ethan POV's from each of the Funeral Crashing books to my mailing list before I put them up for sale on Amazon. It's a huge freebie for my mailing list subscribers! Join ASAP so that you don't miss out!!!!!! http://www.mildaharris.com/p/contact.html
And now the excerpt!!!!
Adventures in Homicide and Heartbreak (Funeral Crashing #4) EXCERPT (I apologize for the weird formatting. Blogger hates copy/paste from Word. Drives me crazy! :) ):
I love you. There
it was written on the screen of my phone in text message from my boyfriend,
Ethan Ripley. I couldn’t get enough of looking at those words. We had only
said, texted, and written those three significant words about a billion times,
but it wasn't getting old. I felt giddy every single time I saw or heard them
from Ethan. I was so totally and completely in love with him. I still couldn't
believe that he was my boyfriend and that he loved me. Life had taken such a
surreal, amazing turn since the beginning of the school year. My life was
finally completely perfect for once.
“Kait. Kait.
Kait. Kait. Miss Lenox,” Detective Dixon said breaking into my thoughts.
I looked up and
felt my cheeks start turning pink. The silly smile that I knew was on my face
disappeared. I turned off my phone and put it back into my purse. It was kind
of embarrassing getting caught sending love texts to your boyfriend by your
boss when you were supposed to be doing work for your internship.
“Oh, hey,
Detective Dixon. Is something up?” I asked innocently.
Detective Dixon
handed me a stack of papers. “Yes. Can you photocopy these for me ASAP?”
“Sure. No
problem,” I said taking the stack of papers from Detective Dixon. “I’ll get
them back to you right away.”
When I took the
internship at the Palos Police Department I thought that it would be really
cool, but so far it had mostly been making tons and tons of copies. Of course,
I did manage to read some of the police reports, which were really interesting,
but the downside was that my fingers were full of band-aids from paper cuts and
I kept getting ink stains all over my clothes.
“Can you get me a
cup of coffee too?” Detective Dixon asked.
That was another
part of my job. I brewed and poured a ton of coffee. I was practically becoming
a barista like Suzie. Everyone had a specific way to drink his or her coffee
too. Detective Dixon’s order was easy. He liked his coffee strong and black. It
was one of the few orders I managed to remember.
“Sure. Do you
have your travel mug?” I asked. As a thank you for getting me the internship I
had gotten him a travel mug that said: Recycling is cool. It wasn’t completely
altruistic of me of course. I was trying to get Detective Dixon to get rid of
his Styrofoam cup addiction. Plus I was hoping that if Detective Dixon read that
mantra every day then it might stick and make him pro-active on recycling. A
girl could hope.
Detective Dixon
frowned. He never knew where he put that mug. I was always finding it in random
places when I got him coffee.
“I think it’s on
my desk.”
“No problem. I’ll
get it after I make the copies,” I said.
"Thanks,"
Detective Dixon said.
The travel mug
was actually probably not on his desk, but buried under a pile of paper. Once I
even found it under his desk. I didn’t know how Detective Dixon kept any of his
files straight. His office was a constant mess. That mess also, much to my
disappointment, still included Styrofoam cups. When I wasn't at the office
getting him coffee in his mug, he was still drinking from them. Maybe he needed
a second travel mug so that he could use that one when he couldn't find the
first one. Still, I had to admit, Detective Dixon was great at his job. I guess
his disorganized system worked for him despite the fact that he couldn't seem
to find that one mug when he wanted a cup of coffee.
I got up from my
desk to go to the copy room.
"And
Kait," Detective Dixon said.
"What?"
I turned back to look at him.
"You're
doing a great job so far."
Thank
you," I felt my cheeks turn pink.
I rushed to the
copy room. Maybe making copies wasn't so bad. At least that was what I thought
for about two whole minutes until the copier jammed. It practically shredded
one of Detective Dixon's original reports. I tried to breathe and not kick the
copy machine. I pulled a few shreds of the original paper out of it. I'd have
to tape it together. I wondered if Detective Dixon would freak out. It wasn't
my fault, though, that the copier ate it.
I grabbed some
tape off of the stockroom shelf. Luckily it was in the same room as the copier.
I started taping the paper together. It was a police report from a week ago. I
scanned the first few lines and stopped. My heart started to race. It was about
a murder. Now this was why I had accepted Detective Dixon's offer to intern for
the police department. I wanted to see how a professional murder investigation
was carried out. I glanced around. It was a grey area, reading the cases. I
wasn't sure what Detective Dixon would say if he caught me perusing them.
Somehow I thought that he might not approve. I finished taping the paper
together and scanned the top of the page.
When Dixon
entered the apartment he observed a female lying on the ground fully clothed
with a gunshot wound to the chest.
I wondered if
they had any suspects yet. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I read on.
She was lying
only a few feet from the doorway in the living room of the apartment. Her purse
was on the floor next to her, its contents spilled across the floor as if it
had fallen with her when she was shot. The room itself appeared in order and
there was no sense of a scuffle having occurred.
"Hey, Kait.
I'm about to interview someone. Can you hurry up and get me that coffee?"
Detective Dixon asked, poking his head into the copy room. "I found my mug
and I need those copies."
I almost jumped
out of my skin, but I tried to cover it. I grabbed the copies. I almost didn't
have time to feel surprised that Detective Dixon had found his travel mug.
Almost.
"Sure.
Here's the report. I sort of mangled one of the originals, but it was the
copier. I swear," I said.
Detective Dixon
frowned, but took my copies including the shredded report. "Be more
careful next time."
I grabbed the
travel mug that Detective Dixon held out to me and ran for the kitchen. I
didn't want to give him the time to put together that I had been reading the
report. I wasn't going to meddle. I was just curious about the case. Still, I
had a gut feeling that Detective Dixon wouldn't be happy about me sticking my
nose where it didn't belong.
I quickly filled
Detective Dixon's coffee mug with black coffee and walked back to his office to
give it to him. I knocked, but he didn't answer. I peered into the room. He
wasn't inside. I wondered if I should go find him in one of the interrogation
rooms, but I wasn't sure that he'd look favorably on me walking in if he was
already interrogating a witness. That could also be dangerous. I walked into
his office and placed his mug on his desk.
Of course as I
did that, the top of the coffee spilled a little onto a file folder on his
desk. Today was not my day. First the copier shredded the report and now this.
I looked around the room and spotted a box of tissues on a side table. I
grabbed them and blotted the file folder. At least it helped a little. I opened
it. My half shredded document was underneath along with a bunch of other
papers. I stared at it. It was like fate. I was tempted to start reading the
report again, but I didn't. It would be way too easy for Detective Dixon to
catch me if I was in his office. Still, if I ever needed to copy it again at
least I'd know which case it was...
I shook myself
out of my thoughts. At least the shredded report wasn't wet. I shut the file
folder, dabbing it again with more tissue to make sure it was as dry as
possible. Then I made sure to place it far away from the coffee mug.
I ran back to my
make-shift desk, which was really just a small folding table set up for me in
an out of the way spot in the bullpen. I pulled out my phone. I needed
something to occupy my thoughts and my number one distraction was Ethan. He would make me feel better. I thought about
calling him, but I didn't think any of the other officers would want to hear me
talk lovey-dovey to Ethan.
Hey. Whatcha
up to? I texted. Maybe we
could get back on track with the I love you texts. They made me super happy
inside. Should I say it first.
Writing a
song. Ethan texted back.
I smiled. This
could be just about as good as the I love you texting. About me?
Maybe. Ethan wrote.
I knew I had a
sappy look on my face now. I hoped it was another song about me. I absolutely
loved the first song that he wrote about me. It was called Funeral Crashing
Girl and I had recorded him singing it. I listened to it over and over and
over again. The first time he played it for me was at one of his gigs on the
night he told me that he loved me for the first time. It meant so much more to
me because of that.
I still couldn't
believe that Ethan loved me. It was like all of my dreams had come true. Things
were perfect between us. I got to kiss him practically every day at school and
make-out with him whenever I had time outside of school. There was only one
thing that I was nervous about. I was starting to want more. Things had been
great right up until New Year's. Then after an amazing New Year's kiss that had
lit my body on fire and that I hadn't wanted to stop, I started thinking about
it. You know. It. It was totally freaking scary, but I was definitely starting
to want more. I was pretty sure Ethan felt the same way. At least I hoped he
did. We hadn't really talked about it officially or anything. I was too scared
to bring it up and I really wasn't sure if I was ready. I mean, a huge part of
me was definitely ready. My heart beat a little faster just thinking about it,
actually. I had definitely fantasized about it, but that was all fantasy. The
reality of it was different. It was such a big step in our relationship, not to
mention in my life. It was kind of terrifying and yet, super exciting too.
"But I
didn't do anything!" A guy was yelling from inside one of the
interrogation rooms.
The yelling broke
me out of my head. I reluctantly looked up from my cellphone as the door to
that interrogation room swung open. Detective Dixon walked out and over to
Officer Quincy. I wondered what was going on. It looked like a heated
discussion. I wondered if it had to anything to do with the report I had
started to read. Was the suspected murderer in there? Officer Quincy was
frowning at something Detective Dixon said. I wished I could hear what they
were saying. This was why I was here! I wanted to know how they investigated a
murder. What kind of questions did they ask when they were interrogating
someone? Did they really do good cop/bad cop? I wanted to know.
Officer Quincy
was facing me. I wished I could read his lips. I needed to practice that. Maybe
there was a video online that could give me some tips. Huh. He had kind of nice
lips for a guy. Truthfully, I'd almost have a crush on Officer Quincy if I
wasn't dating Ethan. He had slightly too long for a cop brown hair, brown eyes,
and you could tell he worked out. He was pretty hot actually. To top it all
off, he couldn't have been that much older than me. He had to only be in his
early twenties. I hadn't really talked to him or anything, though. I still got
tongue twisted around cute guys even if I did have a boyfriend. Besides, I
didn't want Officer Quincy to remember the first time he had met me. I had been
covered in goop at a funeral and it wasn't the best first impression.
Officer Quincy glanced over at me like he
could tell I was looking at him. I looked away, feeling my cheeks turn pink.
That was when I saw whom Detective Dixon had been talking to in the
interrogation room. He was leaning toward the doorway and staring at Officer
Quincy and Detective Dixon like he was trying to figure out what they were
talking about too. It was someone I knew. My jaw dropped. It was my ex-BFF's
boyfriend, Troy Matthews.
***************
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