Once we get to the end of our efforts on Brownstone’s arc, I’ll have to take a breather and see if we have told these characters’ total stories or not. If we have, great! If we haven’t – does the customer base ‘WANT’ a new Brownstone, Shay and Alison and what would it look like?
I am in ‘love’ with this small family and how they are growing together. I see Shay being able to continue having adventures for as long as enough fans wish to continue reading about her. Mind you, she HAS to change to keep that interesting.
We shall see if Martha, Judith (Berens) and I are up to the task ;-)
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Reload Faster
I Fear No Evil Book 3
Reload Faster
Chapter One
Shay pressed her back against the smooth cement wall of the darkened La Brea Tar Pits museum, Peyton’s voice screaming in her ear.
“Tone it down or I’m ditching this thing,” she whispered.
“Sorry, that one was a little close for me.”
“Your ass isn’t even on the line.”
Peyton was sitting back in the safety of the warehouse, watching everything on a computer monitor. He was wearing a safari outfit with red, white and blue suspenders. It was his homage to dinosaurs and to big oil.
“That pin camera makes it feel like I’m there. I heard that bullet whizz right past your ear!” He stood up, excited, knocking the chair back.
“Send up the drone and tell me where they are now.”
Shay could see from her position below, the blinking red light in the darkness as the drone disappeared just over the edge of the tall building.
“Okay,” said Peyton, “there’s one crawling up the fire escape toward the roof and two moving down the sidewalk. Tell me again how you managed to piss them off?”
Shay grimaced and made a mental note to shortsheet Peyton’s bed with a nice mixture of spiders. “I didn’t piss anyone off. I got to the treasure ahead of them. Hometown girl, I know the turf better.” They were definitely out of town hired help. Goons with guns.
Peyton had found her a job digging out an old amulet near the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. She would be home before dinner if it weren’t for the hired army who had the same idea at the same time.
Shay would have to look into that later. See if someone betrayed her or it was just dumb luck.
“Well, they came prepared because they’re crawling all over,” said Peyton, a buzzing voice in Shay’s ear. “Gonna call them the Ant Hill gang.”
“I’m sure that won’t inspire them to put a bullet through you.”
“From the looks of things, Shay they don’t need inspiration. Oh shit, get out of there. The guy on the roof is coming over to your side. Time to move.”
Shay checked the bag slung across her chest and scanned the area for the best way to get out of there with the least amount of visibility. At least she was able to draw them away to a more deserted location.
The coordinates for the amulet put it closer to Wilshire Boulevard, still hopping even at three in the morning. Just a different kind of crowd.
Peyton’s voice, still excited, flew back into her brain. “My idea of a disguise turned out to be brilliant.”
“That wasn’t a novel idea. I was already going through the warehouse.”
“Well, I gave it the theme. School marm was a good choice. You managed to get the hell out of there without pulling out your gun.”
“Who says marm,” Shay hissed under her breath as she ditched the costume. “And it’s not a marm, it’s average suburban white woman.”
Underneath Shay was wearing an all-black, tight fitting suit; her first choice when tomb raiding. She slid the black hood up over her head, tucking in her hair and made a run for it from the back of the building.
She looked back in time to see someone dart behind some trees. The tomb raider raised her gun, still making her way across the open area. Not a good place to stop and reconnaissance anything.
“Average suburban white woman on Wilshire during the day would make you stand out like a sore thumb,” said Peyton. “Where’s the Gucci? But at night, it has I need a drug buy written all over it. Brilliant! Where are you running to? All I see are trees.”
Shay heard the buzz of the distant drone and angrily spat out, “Fly that damn mechanical gnat in the other direction, away from me!”
“Right, good call. Or roger that. Fuck!”
Shay heard the shouts in the distance behind her. “What? Now you stop talking?”
“Sorry, swallowed my gum. Uh, Shay, they’ve brought in reinforcements.”
“Why do they want this amulet so badly? The price doesn’t warrant this much attention. You did research the amulet’s history, right?”
“Pshew, yes, of course I did.”
Shay could hear the sound of frantic typing. Snakes in his bed, definitely snakes.
Shay glanced over her shoulder and saw something run across the open space, diagonally away from her. She thought about taking a shot but too many people came out at night to play in this city. She wasn’t going to take the chance of killing a nosey bystander.
Old life protocol versus new life.
“Great, now I have to keep track of two directions.” Shay’s rented Jeep was parked a mile back behind the Park La Brea apartments under a burned-out streetlight. Once she was past the open ground it would get easier to move along the smaller streets and get to her car unnoticed.
First, she had to get a few more hundred yards.
“What’s that? What’s going on? Okay, I found it. Not my fault,” said Peyton.
“No one likes excuses. This is right about where I would have just shot you in the old days, just so I wouldn’t hear it.”
“Well, thank goodness times change. Okay, this was hard to find. Obscure little mention on the dark web. Right… excuse… The amulet was part of
