LAKE NAGER (really one of the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York)
Being the smart person you are, you have divorced your screwed-up psychiatrist and moved far away where he'll never find you. Or will he? You've taken a new position
as psychologist at the Lake Nager Medical Center in upstate Wisconsin. Lake Nager
a resort town, and it's the Fourth of July weekend. (I must have written this in winter and wished it were summer). This is your first day on the job--the phone rings. And, there he is. Your ex. And not only is he on the telephone, he's in the parking lot. How did he FIND you? Nervous, you knock the vase full of water and flower onto the floor, when you hear another knock. who could it be this time? Oh your first client.
Here is page one of chapter one of WATERLILIES OVER MY GRAVE
Chapter One
“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee...”
Dr. Annabelle O’Brien stared at her cell phone. “I think you
have the wrong…”
“And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love
and be loved by me.”
My God. What th…?
The tone set the back of her hair on end. She recognized the
voice, yet she didn’t. A sing-songy, almost child-like tone had
replaced the beautiful baritone that had been Duncan’s. A horrid
taste of bile rose in her throat, her palms moistened, and the phone
slipped from one hand into the other then fell onto her oak veneer
desk with a thump. She had a hard time picking it up again.
Annie’s throat turned to sandpaper, but she managed to
squeak out, “Duncan. What do you want?”
The man on the other end cleared his throat as though he
were exercising the greatest of patience to an elementary school
student. “Do you remember, my dearest Annabelle, ‘Til death do us
part’?”
Air lodged in her throat. She forced herself to breathe. In-out,
in-out, until her intake came in steady shallow streams, gradually
lengthening to deeper breaths. Slow. Relaxing. She was finally able
to speak. “How did you get this number?”
The caller laughed. The laugh turned to a whisper. “Doesn’t
matter how I got your number, love. No matter where you run, where
you go, where you hide, you can not get away from me.”
No! He couldn’t be threatening her now. Her usually cool nerves betrayed her as her stomach pitched like a roller coaster that had plunged straight down hill doing sixty-miles an hour.
So that's it for today. Tomorrow we meet Annie's second worst nightmare, her first day at work. That would be Detective Mark Driscoll.
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