“Okay, bye!” The door closed.
Darell shuffled to his desk and sat down. The desktop page gleamed so empty. So frightening.
Writing would still be difficult, even if he didn’t need to plot. He’d have to fight his wandering concentration constantly. But he would prevail.
Write a page a day—and you have a book in a year.
Darell took a deep breath and reached for the mouse.
“Help me on this one, God.”
The prayer blurted out, surprising him. Quite the first in his writing career. But apropos. Necessary.
This book would be from his heart, with his own chapters in first person. It would be his penance. His coming clean. Not that it wasn’t an amazing story. But to tell it with truth, every detail the way it really happened, required airing his own weaknesses and destructive pride. It meant admitting the lifelong dark pursuit that had cost him so much.
When all was said and done, his reputation as the formidable King of Suspense would be forever tarnished.
So be it.
Darell opened a new file.
Kaitlan had come home. Next year she’d present him with a great grandchild. But somewhere in England he still had a daughter—Kaitlan’s mother—whom he had driven away. Who he hoped would read this book. And
The white page awaited.
How far would he get in his work today? Anticipation pulsed through him at the thought. At least the first few pages were already written.
Settling himself, poising fingers over the keys, Darell Brooke typed his cover page.
Chapter 1
“Ever hear the dead knocking?”
Leland Hugh watches the psychiatrist ponder his question, no reaction on the man’s lined, learned face. The doctor lists to one side in his chair, a fist under his sagging jowl. The picture of unshakable confidence.
“No, can’t say I have.”
Hugh nods and gazes at the floor. “I do. At night, always at night.”
“Why do they knock?”
His eyes raise to look straight into the doctor’s. “They want my soul.”
No response but a mere inclining of the head. The intentional silence pulses, waiting for an explanation. Psychiatrists are good at that.
“I took theirs, you see. Put them in their graves early.” Deep inside Hugh, the anger and fear begin to swirl. He swallows, voice tightening. “They’re supposed to
From outside the door, at the windows, in the closet, in the walls—they used to knock. Now, in his jail cell the noises come from beneath the floor. Harassing, insistent, hate-filled, and bitter sounds that pound his ears and drill his brain until sleep will not,
“Do you ever answer?”
Shock twists Hugh’s lips. “
The psychiatrist’s face remains placid. The slight, knowing curve to his mouth makes Hugh want to slug him.
“You think they’re not real, don’t you?” Hugh steeples his fingers with mocking erudition. “Yes, esteemed colleagues.” He affects an arrogant highbrow voice. “I have determined the subject suffers from EGS—Extreme Guilt Syndrome, the roots of which run so deep as never to be extirpated, with symptoms aggrandizing into myriad areas of the subject’s life and resulting in perceived paranormal phenomena.”
He drops both hands in his lap, lowering his chin to look derisively at the good doctor.
The man inhales slowly. “Do you feel guilt for the murders?”
“Why should I? They
He pushes to his feet.
XXX
“Aaghh!” I smacked the keyboard and shoved away from my desk. All concentration drained from my mind like water from a leaky pan.
The characters froze.
I lowered my head, raking gnarled fingers into the front of my scalp. For a time there I’d almost had it—that ancient joy of thoughts flowing and fingers typing. In the last hour I’d managed to write three or four paragraphs. Now—nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
What good is an author who can’t hold a plot in his head? …
