Today’s excerpt is from Monster’s
Palace, a standalone book featuring new main character, Clyde Feegle. The hunt is on for Jo Kelly with a bit of
humor while driving to what turns out to be her empty store. Enjoy and have a fantastic day.
m.j.
Merrill and Clyde were chuckling as they left the office to
round up Candi and Floyd. After they
found them, the four headed to the Director’s SUV…without Greta. It had been decided to leave her with Glenn
since the likelihood of the store being rigged with a bomb was unlikely. Floyd drove, at Merrill’s request. On the way, Clyde casually asked, “Hey,
Candi, why did the Director suggest we ask Floyd to drive?”
“Never mind.”
Floyd spoke up, “She crashed the last SUV we had—was her
fault, too.”
“Shut up, Floyd.”
The subject was dropped, but both Merrill and Clyde knew at
some point they would ask Floyd for more details…when Candi wasn’t around.
When they arrived at “Jo’s Art Emporium”, Floyd found a
parking spot just two cars down from the entrance. As they got out, Merrill muttered, “Might be
a good idea for one of you two to stay here.”
Floyd nodded. “I’ll
stay.”
Both Merrill and Clyde had an idea Floyd wasn’t in any hurry
to brief them on Candi’s accident. So
did Candi, as she followed the two men with a smile on her face. As they would eventually find out, she had
been driving when the accident had occurred, but it was anything but her
fault. A dump truck had lost its brakes
and plowed into the side of the SUV after running a stoplight. No one inside had been hurt because
fortunately the truck had not been traveling at a high rate of speed.
Clyde walked up to the door and looked at the hastily
prepared sign Jo had put in the window.
It read: “Closed, will not be
re-opening.”
Clyde sighed, but as he did, he tried the door. It was open.
He didn’t like that one bit as he pulled his weapon and he went in, with
Merrill and Candi right behind him—both with their weapons out, also. Candi shut the door behind her and muttered,
“Better let me take a look around.”
Clyde growled, “In a pig’s ass—we’ll all look around. Fan out.”
As he spoke he wagged his gun to one side of him, then the
other. Merrill went to his left, Candi
to his right. They eased forward as they
went through the front display portion of the store. All noted it seemed like quite a bit of stock
was still in place. In time they
determined there was no one in the store portion of the building. Candi discovered the door to the work area,
opened it, peeked in, and shrugged.
Clyde walked up next to her and looked in before he went
in. Those two looked around while
Merrill held back, keeping an eye on the front door. Except for the tools Jo had left behind,
there was little to see, so they returned to the store. He looked at Merrill. “Let’s take a look in her office. Candi, keep an eye out while we do.”
“Roger.”
As those two went into the office, Candi situated herself
where she could easily see the front door, but was still far enough back, away
from the side door, to not be surprised at someone coming through it.
While Clyde and Merrill looked through the office, Clyde
muttered, “I guess you noticed the empty walk-in vault.”
“Yeah, which could mean a number of things. From the looks of the rest of the store, with
all the stuff in there, I’d bet on the good stuff—the real expensive items—were
in the vault. Either she or someone else
took those, but didn’t have time or space for everything else.”
“About what I figured, too.”
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