Kindle Edition
Amazon
Diane Marie Taylor
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Amazon
ISBN-10: 1980579628
Type: Fiction
Pages: 400
Copyright: March 17, 2018
Price: $4.00 (eBook)
Otto, an angel, joins up with a former police detective to solve a case of missing children. It is uncertain if the children are alive or just missing.
Otto, an angel, but only a half angel as he admits, joins with Maurice in his Missing Person Agency to solve the problem of two missing, or presumed dead, children, Jimmy age three and Jaimie six months. The story takes the reader through the steps of learning about the children’s whereabouts and rescuing them.
We learn that after the father, wild with dope, drops them off in a field. A strange lady stops and picks them up. She decides she wants to protect them from the police and their ‘dopy parents.’
Otto and Maurice need to sift through numerous clues before they are sure that the children are alive and where they are being held. Then they need to come up with a plan of rescue. All this without giving out the hint of Otto’s unique methods.
Maurice’s daughter, Monique, plays a hand in helping rescue the children. Her own son, Maurice’s grandson, David, was taken and hidden away by her husband a year before the story begins. Maurice and Monique still feel deep pain from the loss. One evening, Otto promises Monique he will find her child for her, although a post card from the father has been sent from Mexico.
Otto has a number of abilities humans don’t currently have. He can move through time and walk invisibly into places average people cannot go among other talents. Yet, he has his own problems such as controlling and hiding his deep feelings of empathy. Also, his own reason for visiting this time period. He wants to locate and save his pod mate, a person from his own time on a machine trip that turned into a nightmare. Certain people in his own time choose these dream trips in order to experience clean air and the beautiful earth of the past.
We also meet a real angle, Michael. Michael helped Otto learn to control his ability to jump back and forth in time in a physical body and continues to help Otto during the events of the story.
Excerpt
Prologue
Wednesday March 29, 2017, 9:15 am
James left the dope house empty handed, feeling wild and still in need of the next fix. Whiskey didn’t fill the need enough. Angry, he tossed the empty bottle on the front lawn just before he got back into the car and turned the ignition. He heard little Jamie crying and was shocked to see his two kids sitting in the back seat. He blinked and shook his head. He couldn’t remember what the kids were doing with him instead of the babysitter.
“Shit.” He banged his fists on the steering wheel. “I got business to take care of with your mother. Shut the hell up.”
Eight month old Jamie didn’t listen. Jimmy, almost three, sat next to her and stared at him with his dark eyes beaming anger.
James turned to the back seat and said, “What the fucks wrong with the baby? He mumbled, “Need to get that bitch. Make her watch her own kids.”
Jimmy did nothing but glare at him. Disgusted, James turned back around, put the gun he’d been holding down on the central arm rest, and took off driving with the tires screeching. When he swung around the corner, the baby screamed even louder. He pulled up to the curb and slammed on the brakes. The baby wasn’t in a car seat so she tumbled to the side of the car and now cried even harder. The gun flew into the back seat.
“Damn.” James’ nerves were on edge. “I don’t need this shit.”
He turned in the seat and saw that Jimmy had picked up the gun and was pointing it at him. James swung his arm at Jimmy and knocked the gun onto the floor. James could barely talk without slurring his words.
”Don’t you know better than pick up a gun?” as he spoke he reached over the arm rest into the back and grabbed Jimmy and shook him. After a moment, he relented by letting go of Jimmy and said, “What’s the matter with your sister?”
“You made her hit her head.” Jimmy said to his father, his voice full of fear and daring.
James saw that the baby had a trickle of blood running down her face from her head. He threw up his arms in despair.
“And she pooped her diaper.” Jimmy added, his eyes blazing as if he would bore holes in his father. “She stinks.”
The damn kid’s always acting older than his years. Born old.
“Damn” James opened the front door and made ready to climb into the back seat. As he did, little Jimmy slid closer to his sister as if to protect her. This made James angry. He reached in between the bucket seats and picked up the gun from the floor and aimed it at both kids who were huddled on the right side of the car. His hands shook so badly he almost dropped the gun. He paused as if noticing for the first time how dangerous it was to point the gun. He slid the gun in the side pocket of his jacket.
“Jimmy, get out of the damn car.”
When Jimmy hesitated, he added, “Right now.”
Jimmy climbed out of the back seat and stood next to the car as his father got out, climbed into the back, lay the baby on the seat and took off the dirty diaper. He rolled the diaper up and threw it on the floor. He got a clean diaper out of the diaper bag to put it on the baby. The diaper kept weaving in front of his eyes. Now his whole body was quivering so badly he could hardly maneuver the diaper into place and then slide the pants up. He used his jacket sleeve to wipe the blood from the baby’s head and nose. It smeared on her wet cheek. He closed his eyes for a minute and opened them again.
Finished with the baby now, he handed her out the car to Jimmy. “Here,” he said to Jimmy, “Take you sister, and the bag.” He handed it over too.
When James climbed out of the back seat, the gun fell out of his pocket. Still swaying from drink and sputtering nerves, James swayed as he looked down at the gun lying in a tuff of grass beside a piece of broken window frame. His hand trembled as he grabbed up the gun again in his right hand, then grabbed the baby from Jimmy’s arms and pulled Jimmy with his left hand deeper into the field away from the street.
He stumbled around used tires, broken chairs and a stuffed couch laying upside down in the center of the field and put the baby down in a patch of grass. Then he stood swaying for a number of minutes, as if forgetting what he was about. He looked down at the gun still held in his right hand as if confused. He looked at his two children and frowned.
“Now listen up. I got business to take care of. That bitch gonna find out you don’t mess with James Fortson.”
James put the gun back into his pocket and set the baby on the ground then pointed a finger at Jimmy.
“You stay here and take care of your sister. Don’t move until I get back.”
Jimmy stood and watched his father walk back to the car on shaky legs then screech the tires again as he took off. The child’s eyes took on a glimmer of fear as he heard his father race the car down the small side street and turn the corner onto the bigger street and saw the car move out of sight. He sat down and took hold of his sister by the arm and scooted her closer to him. She had almost stopped crying by now and leaned her head against his chest. Eyes closed, she seemed more comfortable now sitting next to her brother. She sniffed at the snot still running down from her nose.
Jimmy couldn’t help crying a little himself while he waited for his dad to return. Then he felt the first drops of rain and sniffled and wiped his jacket across his nose. He wanted to sleep like little Jamie but looked around at all the junk that surrounded them in the field and was too scared because maybe a rat would jump out at them. He held tight to his sister as if they could both stay safer welded close together as the rain continued to fall.
Two hours later, in the Seventh Precinct, Chief Bell called Maurice into his office. “I know you have a good record for solving crime, but you’ve messed up a lot lately. How long’s it been since you wife died? Six months?” When Maurice would have answered, he added, “I know your grandson’s gone too. Still, not a good enough excuse.”
“It’s been seven months and two days. Grandson gone eight.” Maurice said. He could hear the defeat in his own voice as he spoke. He stood silent at the Chief’s desk and didn’t argue further. He still felt hung over and he knew he was beat down. His shirt was wrinkled and his shoes scuffed. He did manage to shave this morning. A good, full night’s sleep had eluded him since Jeannette died and David went missing. His whole life had turned upside down within two months.
“You had a month’s leave of absence not too long ago. Looks like you drank through it.”
Maurice’s voice got a touch defiant. “I used the time to go looking for my grandson.”
The Chief let out a long breath. “Ok, look,” he said, “We just got a call from a young girl who was babysitting two kids. Father knocked her out and took the kids. Seems like that McDonald’s shooting a few hours ago might be related to her call. If so, we now have two babies gone missing and presumed dead. You up to handling it?”
Maurice frowned. “Hell. Doesn’t sound good, does it.”
“No, it damn sure doesn’t. So I’ll ask you again. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Sure chief. I’ll handle it.”
“It’s lunch time but I think you need to get right on it. Get the babysitter’s address from June at the front desk. No booze, you hear? Or I’ll kick your ass into early retirement. Is that clear?”
Maurice’s face showed no animation as he nodded then turned and left the office. When he stepped out of the precinct a few minutes later the rain and wind had intensified into a downpour. As he ran for the car, thunder boomed and lightening split open the sky like an angry omen of doom. A premonition shot through his mind like the lightening that this would be the one, the unsolvable case that all detectives dreaded. This would be the one to stop him cold.
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