Special Sneak Peak!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen!! I give a you an excerpt of the prologue to "The Parker Chronicles: Book 1 - The SPJ"!!! Co-authored with Ann Franchi!!!! Coming Fall 2016!!!!

He woke up with a start in a dimly lit room. His head ached, the blood pounding into his brain with a steady, but incessant, thump in time with the beating of his heart. He couldn't remember where he was. Or who he was.

The last thing he remembered was lying down in bed with his wife. She was also his boss. They had made love just prior to her falling asleep. In the other rooms, their two children had been fast asleep, so there had been no worries of being disturbed. When she fell asleep, he had gone downstairs to fix himself a warm glass of milk.

He thought he heard a noise behind him. Simultaneously he heard a woman's urgent voice. The voice was familiar; one he had learned to trust over the years. But it wasn't the voice of his beloved wife. Behind you!

He swiftly turned around, prepared to defend himself and his family. And then....

“And then...” what? What happened?

He had been here for days. He knew that much. He was naked except for the tattered remnants of a robe and a pair of briefs. At least his captors allowed him the dignity of being partially covered.

The throbbing of the many bruises all over him beat a counterpoint to that of his head. He was dirty and had more than a few days’ worth of growth on his face.

He was also sweaty. The room felt muggy and stuffy. The air almost stale. He could feel his sweat seep into the many unhealed cuts he had received. Stinging. Some of the cuts, he knew, were just short of being fatal. But not by much.

His captors wanted him alive for some reason. He thought he knew, but in his muddled brain he could not remember why. It was obvious, he was being tortured for some kind of information. But he didn't know anything.

He looked at his surroundings. He was in a basement of some kind. It almost seemed familiar. The little bit of light that just barely lit the room, came from a small window above his head.

He went to adjust himself into a more comfortable position when he discovered he could not move his arms. That's when he noticed his arms were secured above his head. Each wrist bound by a separate chain coming out of the wall. In vain, he tried to jerk free until his wrists started to bleed. Adding to the days old dried up blood already running down his arms.

Where's Jasmine? he thought. Jasmine? Who's Jasmine? He didn't know. The name somehow seemed familiar. Important.

An image of a woman came unbidden to his mind. She was Indian. Not the Native American Indian, but from the sub-continent of India. She was a beautiful woman dressed in the style of the Victorian-era. He wasn't sure, but he thought it was natural for her to be dressed in such an antiquated manner.

Just as he thought he remembered who the strangely dressed woman was, the thought drifted out of his reach. It lost itself in the currents of his swirling mind of half remembered thoughts.

His mind drifted that way for countless minutes. Each time he thought he recognized something, he reached out eagerly for it; as if he were a man in the desert searching for a way to parch his thirst. As before, the memories flitted away from his grasp. A butterfly flitting away on a gentle summer's breeze to disappear from view.

Finally, he was able to grasp at one such memory and held on to it. It seemed important. At that moment it was the most important thing in his life. A life preserver in the torrential sea of swirling memories that threatened to pull away with each angry surge.

It was a memory of a woman. Different from that of the other woman. What other woman? He wasn't sure. For a moment he thought he remembered another woman. He tried hard to remember the other woman. He nearly lost hold of the memory he currently held.

In the memory he desperately clung to, the woman was five-feet nine-inches tall. She had military length dark brown hair, short enough to fit under a flying helmet, brown eyes, medium brown tanned skin, and very fit despite weighing around 145 lbs. She appeared to be younger than him. Somehow, he knew that she was only a few years older. How do I know that? How old am I? Who am I? Who is she?

As if in answer another memory floated by. He snatched at it and held onto it, just as he did with the other. Once again, he nearly lost hold of the original memory of the woman. The new memory was of the same woman. She was in an office of some kind. She was dressed crisply in a military style uniform. In her hands, she held towards him a worn book. “Sign it ’To Corey’--,” the woman said in an almost familiar voice.

He reached for the memory of the book, eagerly. It would give him a clue as to who he was. Just as his hand touched the book, however, the memory faded. He let out a scream of frustration.

“To Corey--”

He came across another memory involving this woman. For some reason, it involved an old plane set in the middle of a field. Then he lost it.

“To Corey--”

Corey. That was her name. Somehow, he knew Corey was the name of the woman's memory he still clutched.

He had to get back to her. Had to get back to Corey.

Corey.