OUT OF
TIME is the HIGHLY ANTICIPATED sequel to NINE MINUTES where Grizz, Kit and
Grunt's gritty tale continues on July 23rd!
Add this
gritty MC romance to your TBR HERE
Prologue
1950s, Central Florida
The
slap was hard and almost knocked him to his knees. They wobbled for a split
second, but he managed to regain his stance and glared hard at his father.
“Your
mother said you missed the bus and had to hitchhike home.”
He
tasted blood in his mouth where the slap had caused him to bite the inside of
his cheek. He knew his next comment would bring another blow. He braced
himself.
“Ida
is not my mother.”
Another
hard one, this time to the side of his head, which caused a ringing in his ear.
This was nothing. He’d endured worse. He didn’t know why it bothered his father
so much when he said this. Ida herself was the first to remind him that she
wasn’t his mother.
“Don’t
fuck with me, boy. Where were you?”
“It’s
the last day of school. Some of us had to stay after to help the teachers clean
out their classrooms.” This was a lie. He’d gotten in a fight that day. He’d
snapped when a snooty rich kid made fun of him.
The
kid was new and had only been enrolled for the last two weeks before school let
out for the summer. He was too new to have been warned. The new kid had asked
him in the boy’s room if he picked his clothes out of the garbage can that
morning. He’d left the idiot dazed and bloody on the bathroom floor, then
calmly washed his hands and went back to his classroom. He’d looked at the big
clock over the blackboard. Less than fifteen minutes until summer started.
Hopefully, his dad wouldn’t work him to death and he’d be able to keep an eye
out for her. For Ruthie.
He’d
been on the loaded school bus, ready to pull away, when the driver reached over
and opened the door. The substitute principal stood at the front of the bus and
quietly perused the group of kids. When he saw who he was looking for, he
pointed and indicated with his finger. Follow.
Damn.
He’d almost made it out of there.
They
never discussed the alleged crime as they made their way back into the school
and to the principal’s office. He simply bent over the desk and endured the
paddling. It wasn’t so bad and didn’t even compare to the beatings he’d
received from his father. Beatings that had left permanent scars on his back
and other parts of his body. He may have been young, but he knew this fucker, a
temporary replacement for the school’s regular principal who was out recovering
from surgery, was enjoying this way too much. Would probably lock his office
door and jerk off after sending him to find his own way home. Fucking pervert.
The world was foul.
So,
he’d hitchhiked and ended up walking the last seven miles to get home and now
stood there, facing the wrath of his father. His stepmother stood off to the
side leaning back against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed and a smug look
on her face. A hot, stale breeze floated in from the window above the kitchen
sink.
His
stepmother. Ida. He’d hated her for as long as he could remember. He had no
memory of his real mother. He was told she’d died in this house giving birth to
him. It wasn’t really a house so much as a shack in the middle of nowhere. A two-bedroom
hovel situated on several acres surrounded by orange groves as far as the eye
could see. His father was a skilled carpenter by trade, but for reasons that
made no sense to his son, he preferred this destitute existence. He could have
made a decent living, could’ve lived in a home not so far from the modern
world—as modern as you could get in the fifties. He chose instead to live in a dilapidated
old house that had been passed down for generations. He never once used his
carpentry skills to make it into a real home. He’d slap some tar on the roof if
it leaked or replace a busted pipe, but other than some hodgepodge repairs, he
never lifted a finger. It was crumbling around them.
Maybe
it was because his father considered himself the king of his castle and he
could hold reign over his unworthy subjects. Maybe the brutality he unleashed
here made him feel an iota of power that he didn’t feel in the real world.
Maybe knowing that he could provide a nice and safe environment, but purposely
chose not to, was part of the psychotic seed that had been implanted in his
personality. He wasn’t just a bad man. He was worse than that. He prided
himself too much on withholding any good he could do for his family.
That
made him pure evil in his son’s eyes.
Before
she’d married, Ida had worked as a maid for a wealthy family in West Palm
Beach. His father had met up with a couple of other laborers to make the long
drive down to a mansion situated on the beach to spend a few days doing
carpentry work and repairs. He returned with his three comrades and a glowing
Ida, who had finally, finally snagged herself a man. She had become tired of
being someone’s maid, and when a hardworking, widowed family man came along and
showed a hint of interest, she jumped. Unfortunately for her, she jumped too
quickly and without hesitation. She hadn’t realized then that she was jumping
from the frying pan right into a fire that was even worse. Overnight, she went
from being a lonely, overworked maid to a lonely, overworked, and abused housewife.
No,
he had no good memories of Ida. Maybe she’d started out trying to do her best.
To make their shack a home, to be a mother to her new husband’s young son. But
if she had started out that way, he had no recollection of it. Maybe she wasn’t
always the horrible person he knew. Maybe his father made her that way. It didn’t
matter. He hated her no matter what. He hated her because he knew what she was
doing to her own daughter. His half-sister, Ruthie.
Ruthie
was a sweet and trusting child who’d captured his heart since the day she was
born. She was a happy little girl who was always smiling in spite of the mistreatment
her mother inflicted. He spent every second that he wasn’t at school or working
caring for his little sister. He adored her and did everything he could to
protect her from his parents, especially Ida. He made sure she ate when she was
sent to bed without supper. He made sure she was bathed. He couldn’t do it
every day, but he did it as often as he could manage. He erased evidence of her
bathroom accidents, making sure to wash out her clothes in the creek and let
them dry before returning them to her dresser. He wiped away her tears and
kissed her boo-boos.
Unfortunately,
there were too many even for him to kiss away.
Every
night she’d say, “Brother, tell me a story. Tell me a happy story where things
don’t hurt and everybody is nice.”
He
would pull her close in the bed they’d shared ever since she was a baby and,
ignoring the stench of their unwashed bodies, he would make up happy stories to
tell her. Anything to make her forget, just for a little while. They would
watch the stars from their bedroom window and sometimes he‘d even use them in
his stories.
“See
the brightest star, Ruthie?” he’d tell her as they gazed out their window. “That’s
you. You’re the brightest, most beautiful star in the sky.”
“Where
are you, Brother? Are you there, too?” she asked him once.
“I’ll
always be the one that’s closest to you.”
He
didn’t know if the stories he made up were happy ones. He didn’t know what
happiness was himself, so how could he tell a four-year old? But he tried.
Once
in a while, after he was certain his father and Ida were asleep, he’d go to the
back screen door and let Razor in to sleep with them, too. Razor was a big
black Rottweiler that had wandered up to their house one day and never left.
His father refused to let the dog stay and insisted he didn’t need another
mouth to feed, that he’d shoot the dog if it didn’t leave on its own. The dog
was smart. Sensing the father’s animosity, it would come around only at night
and wait for the handout left for him on the far side of the barn. His father
finally relented; he decided maybe the dog wasn’t so bad after all when his
barking woke them up one night to warn them that a wild animal was trying to
get into the chicken coop. The hen’s squawking never reached their sleeping
ears, but the stray dog’s barking and pawing at their back door did. His father
let Razor stay, but he had to be kept outside.
Now,
the beating done for the day, his father stared at him for a few seconds.
Finally, he said, “Get your fucking chores started. Don’t come back in until
they’re all finished. You don’t get done before supper and you don’t eat.”
The
boy didn’t need to glance at his stepmother to know she would purposely serve a
very early supper that day. He headed out the back screen door and let it slam
behind him.
“C’mon,
Razor,” he said as he headed for the ramshackle barn.
It
was dark outside when he finally finished his chores. He found some food he’d
stashed in the barn and silently ate, sharing half with his dog. After washing
up in the rain barrel, he headed into the house and crawled into bed with
Ruthie, pulling her close. She moaned.
“Brother
is here, Ruthie. Do you want a story?” He was exhausted, but couldn’t fall
asleep thinking he would let her down without a story.
“My
stomach hurts,” she whispered.
“Do
you need me to take you to the bathroom?” he whispered back.
“No.
It’s not that kind of hurt.”
“What
kind of hurt is it? Are you hungry?
“Mommy
stepped on it.”
He
stiffened, then squeezed his eyes shut. He was glad she didn’t want a happy
story tonight because the only one he could think of was one where he strangled
Ida with his bare hands.
The
next day, he was walking back from the groves carrying the three squirrels he’d
killed with his slingshot. Ida could make a decent stew out of these. He’d
watched Ruthie that morning at the table as she slowly ate her breakfast. She
seemed okay, and he’d left to hunt before she finished. He shouldered the
squirrels and imagined the look on Ruthie’s face when she saw what he’d caught.
That’s when he heard it. A shotgun blast coming from the
direction of the house.
He’d
heard the shotgun before, when his father caught rare sight of a deer or other
animal that was either a predator or something that would end up on their
dinner table. But his gut told him this was different.
He
broke into a full run, then came upon a scene that brought him up short. He
tensed as his mind started to grasp what had happened.
There,
right beside the clothesline. His father holding the shotgun. Ida cradling a
bleeding arm. Razor on his side and lying in a puddle of blood.
And
Ruthie, on the ground and flat on her back, her arms at her sides. Ruthie.
He
broke into another run.
“Your
fucking dog was attacking your sister, and when Ida tried to stop him, he went
after her, too,” his father said coldly, a finger still resting on the trigger.
“I had to kill him.”
Razor
attacked Ruthie and then Ida for trying to stop him? Impossible. Razor would
never hurt Ruthie.
Ida
held her arm up for him to see. She didn’t have to. He had already seen it and
there was no doubt it was a bite from Razor. More like a mauling. Like he’d
grabbed on and was wrestling with her.
He
dropped his dead squirrels and knelt at Ruthie’s side. And then he knew for
certain the concocted story wasn’t true. His sister was lying on her back, her
eyes closed. Soft blonde curls framed her face. She looked more peaceful and
beautiful than he had ever seen her. A tiny smile curved her sweet, innocent
mouth.
Of
course she was smiling. She had just escaped from hell.
He
knew she was dead. He also saw nothing on her body that indicated Razor had
attacked her.
They
were lying. But he’d already known that.
He
couldn’t stop himself. The words were out of his mouth before he could think.
“Doesn’t
look like Razor attacked Ruthie. No bites or anything. Just Ida’s bruises.”
The
blow was hard, but not unexpected.
“Get
the shovel,” his father ordered. “Pick a place way out past the house and bury
your sister. Don’t care what you do with your dog. You can drag its lousy ass
out to the groves if you want and give the vultures some supper.” Scooping up
the three squirrels that had been dropped, he grabbed his wife by the uninjured
arm. “You ain’t hurt so bad you can’t make supper.”
As
he headed back to the house with Ida and the dead squirrels, he yelled over his
shoulder, “And when you’re done you get your sorry ass back here and put out
the rat poison like you were supposed to do yesterday.”
He
stared after them as they made their way back to the house and tried to imagine
a world without Ruthie.
A
world without light.
Two
weeks later, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a strange man’s car. The
man had introduced himself when he picked up the young hitchhiker, and he didn’t
seem bothered by the fact that the boy just stared at him and refused to say
anything. The boy now turned to gaze out the car window as he reflected on what
he’d done.
He’d
buried his sister like his father had told him to, taken his shirt off and
covered her body with it before retrieving a shovel and heading way out on
their property where he dug one large grave.
Leaving
the shovel at the gravesite, he’d headed back to the house. He went into the
barn and retrieved the rat poison, shoved it down into his pants.
He’d
gone into the house, noticed that Ida had cleaned up and was working on their
squirrel stew. He could tell by her movements she was in a lot of pain. Razor
had done a decent job of tearing up her arm. She probably needed to go to the
hospital, but his father would never take her, nor would he allow her the use
of their one vehicle. It wasn’t at the house anyway. He must’ve gone somewhere.
It
was obvious what had happened. Ida had been giving Ruthie another beating and
Razor had stopped her. Unfortunately, Razor hadn’t stopped her in time.
The
boy had no way of knowing that Ruthie had been slowly dying of internal injuries
sustained from her mother’s brutal beatings, culminating in the final stomp to
her tiny stomach the day before. He was certain Ida had always inflicted her
brutality on Ruthie inside the house, where Razor wasn’t allowed. That day must’ve
been different. She was probably dragging a crying Ruthie out to the yard to
help her with some chore and started whaling on her when the little girl wouldn’t,
or most likely couldn’t, do as she was told. There was no doubt Razor had been
trying to defend Ruthie by grabbing Ida by the right arm. Ida was right-handed.
Leaning
back from her spot at the stove, Ida looked out the back window and spied the
little girl’s body in the yard. She gave her stepson a level look. “You’re not
finished. What are you doing in here?”
Her
voice was steady and without emotion. She could’ve been asking him if he’d fed
the chickens or painted the fence. It revolted him to think that this was how
she thought of her daughter’s burial: a chore. She was more of a monster than
his own father. She had given birth to Ruthie. She had shared the same body
with her only child for nine months. He didn’t know anything about mothering,
but even he could see how there could be, should be, a special bond between a
mother and her child.
Without
looking at her he answered. “Hole’s dug. Came back in for something to wrap her
in. Was gonna take my bed sheet.”
They’d
always shared a bed and it had only ever known one sheet. He would use it to
wrap Ruthie’s tiny body.
He
didn’t know what caused Ida to say the next thing. She countered with an offer
that surprised him but also provided him with an opportunity.
“I
have something you can use. Got it as a going away gift from where I used to work.”
She
took the big spoon she had been stirring with, tapped the side of the pot and
laid it down. Cradling her sore arm against her chest, she headed back toward
the bedroom she shared with her husband. He knew her arm was hurting, knew it
would take a few minutes to dig out whatever it was that she was going to get.
He could hear her clumsily rustling around for something.
He
seized the chance to retrieve the poison from his pants and dump the entire
contents of the container in the stew. He hastily stirred it, grateful that it
seemed to quickly dissolve, and returned the spoon back to its place. He was
standing by the back door when she returned with a blue piece of fabric draped
over her good arm. He realized that it was a bathrobe of some type. It was thin
and he didn’t need to be educated to know that it was high-quality and
expensive. Going away gift my ass, he frowned. She stole this. She held
it out to him while avoiding his penetrating green eyes. They’d always unnerved
her, at least that’s what he’d heard her tell his father, and for a split
second she seemed to hesitate, to waver.
She
must have regained her bravado and, without waiting for him to take the robe,
snapped, “Wrap her in this.” She tossed it at him and headed back over to the
stove to stir her stew.
At
the freshly dug grave, he gently cloaked Ruthie’s little body in his own shirt.
“Brother is always with you, Ruthie,” he said quietly. He then wrapped Razor in
Ida’s expensive bathrobe and snorted to himself as it occurred to him that even
his dog was too good for Ida’s supposed going away gift. He gently laid his
little sister in the very deep hole and placed Razor next to her.
“You
were a good boy, Razor. You did the right thing trying to protect her. Now you
can always protect her.”
He
knew he wasn’t going to mark her grave for anyone to know where she was. Only
him. He knew nobody would be looking anyway. It wasn’t like she was going to be
missed. Like him, she hadn’t been born in a hospital. He doubted she even had a
birth certificate. He wasn’t sure if he had one himself, though he guessed
there was one somewhere, since he’d been enrolled in school. Do you need a
birth certificate to go to school, he wondered? He didn’t know.
He
stood over his sister’s grave and stared at the freshly compacted earth. It was
missing something. He wandered off and soon came back with an oversized rock.
The stone was heavy, massive really, and he had exerted an enormous amount of
energy to carry it to her gravesite. He dropped it with a thud. He had chosen
it because of its size and unique shape. He would remember it.
Falling
to his knees, he began to weep. He never remembered crying even once in his
life. Not even as a child, enduring horrific abuse that was tantamount to
torture. He couldn’t comment on why his father hated him. He couldn’t figure
why his stepmother hated Ruthie. He didn’t want to think about them, anyway.
After he was finished, he’d never think of them again.
A
low wail that didn’t sound human began to build, a cry that came straight from
the pit of his empty stomach and found its way up his chest, through his throat
and out his mouth, taking his soul and any semblance of light with it. The
light that had been Ruthie.
He
wasn’t sure how long he’d knelt sobbing at Ruthie and Razor’s grave. His eyes
stung and he had a combination of dry and wet snot all over his bare arms as he
tried to swipe away the grief. His sore back eventually brought him out of his
mourning, the pulse of the sun reminding him of the lashes his father had
inflicted a few nights earlier. He was physically and mentally exhausted, but
his job wasn’t finished yet.
He
was worn out, but somehow he gathered the strength he needed and headed out
further to an even more remote location.
He
had one more grave to dig.
He
would bury them together, not for the same reason that he buried Ruthie and
Razor together: to offer protection and comfort to one another. No, he dug one
mass grave because they deserved to be dumped like garbage.
And
that was exactly what he was going to do.
“Kid?
Kid, you need anything or have to use the bathroom?”
He’d
fallen asleep and jumped when he was touched. It took him a split second to
remember where he was. A car, now parked. The man who’d picked him up was
looking at him, waiting.
The
man nodded out the window. “I’m getting gas. You need to use the john or
something?”
“Where
are we?”
“Fort
Lauderdale. Getting some gas and heading to Miami.”
He
nodded his head, starting to sit up. He was sore. The last few days had taken a
toll on him physically and he was feeling it.
“Yeah,
I gotta go.”
He
went around the side of the little gas station and let himself into the
restroom. It smelled like crap but was surprisingly clean. His mind wandered as
he relieved himself, memories rolling over him.
He’d
returned to the house that night to find his father and Ida sitting at the
dinner table eating stew. He reached up on the shelf and took down an old jelly
jar, using the kitchen tap to fill it up. Leaning back against the counter, he
drank his water as he watched them eat their dinner. Nobody bothered to offer
him any. That was okay. He would’ve refused it anyway.
“Tastes
like shit! How the fuck can you mess up squirrel stew?” When Ida didn’t answer,
his father backhanded her across the face.
Taking
his glass of water, he’d gone to his bedroom and shut the door behind him. He
laid down on the bed that he’d shared with Ruthie, hugged the only pillow close
to his chest, and fell immediately into a dead sleep.
He
was awakened that night to the sound of violent vomiting and retching. The next
couple of days were a blur as he tried to pretend to help his extremely sick
parents. Keeping buckets by their bedside, bringing them liquids to drink.
Liquids he had continued lacing with more poison from the barn.
He
remembered the instant his father realized what was happening. He was trying to
get out of his bed, insisting that his young son take him and his wife to the
hospital. The boy wasn’t old enough to have a license, but he knew how to
drive. He’d let his son drive their beat-up old station wagon to haul things
around the property.
“You’re
gonna drive us to the hospital, boy,” he said, voice laced with pain.
“No,
I’m not.” He just looked at them, a small smile on his lips. “I’m going to
watch you both die a slow and painful death. I’m kind of glad you never bought
us a TV. This will definitely be much more entertaining.”
Bloodshot
and pain-filled brown eyes met hard green ones as realization dawned. His
father glanced around his bedroom and noticed his shotgun was not in the
corner. It was gone. Even if it had been there, he wouldn’t have had the
strength to get up and get it.
His
father fell back onto the bed and turned to look at his wife. She was curled up
with her arms wrapped around her knees, which were pulled up to her chest. She
had heard the conversation and opened her eyes long enough to say to her
husband, “We both deserve this.”
His
father rolled onto his back and looked at his son, who stood at the foot of the
bed, arms crossed, green eyes cold and staring.
“Shoulda
known you were the devil’s seed.” Without waiting for the boy to comment, he
added, “I loved your momma and thought I did the right thing by marrying her
when she was pregnant by another man. Shoulda known you were evil when you
killed your own mother, you no good piece of shit.”
Finally,
an answer. Although it didn’t matter now. The man who’d raised him wasn’t his
father. The man who’d raised him resented him for taking his mother’s life in
childbirth. Another man’s bastard had killed the woman he loved and he was
going to make that child pay. Had been making that child pay ever since.
In a way, he could kind of understand that. He
almost allowed a stab of conscience in, telling him he should take them to the
hospital. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
But
then he remembered Ruthie. There was no excuse for what had happened to Ruthie.
No excuse at all.
He
stared coldly at the man he’d thought was his father. “I’m just sorry I didn’t
do this before you let her kill Ruthie.”
Then
he went to the kitchen and made himself something to eat.
After
they were dead, he loaded them both in the back of the family car and drove
them out to the second grave. He dumped their bodies with as much care as he’d
show a pile of old chicken bones and flung the dirt back in. He hurled the
shovel in the back of the station wagon and drove back to the house.
He
wanted to draw as little attention to the shack as possible. He would not burn
it down, but he would give careful thought as to what it should look like if a
family just up and left, taking only things they could load in their one car.
He went to work, packing up what few pictures they had, their personal papers
and clothes. He sneered when he saw a picture of his father as a boy. He looked
like a miserable piece of shit even back then. He tossed it in with the other
things. He never came across a single picture of himself or his mother.
He
carelessly threw everything he could into the old car, barely leaving room for
himself to fit into the driver’s seat. He went into his bedroom and retrieved
the brown bag that held the few things he’d set aside to take with him. It
contained some clothes, along with thirty dollars and twenty-six cents that he’d
scavenged from his father’s wallet and Ida’s money cup, which he’d found hidden
behind some dishes in the kitchen. He reached into his pocket, retrieving something
he hadn’t known existed until he’d started cleaning out their personal items.
It was a picture of Ruthie and Razor. It had obviously been taken at their
house, but he didn’t know when or by whom. He never found existence of a camera
when he was going through their belongings. He had no way of knowing where the
picture came from and he didn’t have time to ponder it.
He
looked at it again. Ruthie was sitting down in the grass and looking up and
smiling. She was leaning against Razor, who had himself wrapped around her like
a cocoon. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she had her arms wrapped
tightly around them. Her blonde curls were shorter then. The two of them looked
happy. Like they had been romping in the tall grass and had taken a break to
pose. He knew neither Ida nor his father had taken the picture. If that had
been the case, he was certain his baby sister wouldn’t have been smiling. He
carefully returned it to his back pocket and continued his cleanup.
Hours
later he stood in the middle of the little house, surveying it. He wasn’t
certain, but he was pretty confident he’d loaded up the important stuff. It was
the fourth of the month. The electric and water bills wouldn’t need to get paid
again until the thirtieth. School was out, so he wouldn’t be missed until
September. And even then, he was doubtful anybody would care. His father wasn’t
regularly employed, so he wouldn’t be missed, either. They had no phone to
worry about.
Yes,
it looked like the family that lived here decided to move with their most
personal possessions. The small amount of mail they got could stack up for
months in their little slot at the post office. Nobody would notice. And by the
time they did, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be long gone.
He
headed out to the chicken coop to set them free when he noticed laundry on the
clothesline. He would grab those clothes and toss them in the car before
leaving. After retrieving his brown bag and canteen, he carefully drove the
family’s car to the nearest, deepest canal he knew. It was off the beaten path
and he didn’t have to pass any houses or civilization to get there. It would be
a long, hot walk to hitch a ride somewhere, but he only had a brown bag to
carry and his canteen, which he’d filled with water.
Now,
in the gas station restroom, he splashed cold water on his face and dried off.
He reached into his back pocket before leaving the restroom and took out the
picture of Ruthie and Razor. He would never hold her again. He would never hear
her voice asking for a story. He would never wrap his arms around Razor’s neck
and nuzzle his short fur. He swiped away the tears that had started forming in
his eyes and returned the picture to his back pocket.
He’d
taken a vow that day at Ruthie’s grave. No more crying. Ever.
He
was starting to get hungry and decided to go back to the car to get some money.
He would see what the gas station had in the way of food. Hopefully, they had
some candy bars and soda pop. He’d tasted soda only once and was looking
forward to the sugary drink.
He
made his way around the side of the gas station and stopped dead in his tracks.
The car he had been riding in was gone. He blinked to see if his eyes were
playing tricks on him. They weren’t. That son-of-a-bitch drove off with his
brown bag that contained his few items of clothing and all of his money. He had
left his canteen on the front seat. Even that was gone.
The
world was rotten and so was everybody in it.
Blurb
RECOMMENDED
FOR READERS 18 AND OLDER DUE TO
STRONG LANGUAGE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS AND VIOLENCE
Out of
Time is book two in a series. It is not a standalone novel. I highly recommend
that you read my first novel, Nine Minutes, to be able to understand the
background stories of the main characters. There are many twists and turns in
both stories that can best be connected if read consecutively.
Although
I do answer all of the outstanding questions from Nine Minutes, there is
more to this story, and some readers may consider it a cliffhanger. If you do
not like cliffhangers, you may want to wait until the third novel is released
in 2016.
They
thought with his execution it would all be over.
They
were wrong.
The
leader of one of South Florida’s most notorious and brutal motorcycle gangs has
been put to death by lethal injection. Days later, his family and friends
should have been picking up the pieces, moving on. Instead, they’ve been catapulted
into a world so twisted and dangerous even the most ruthless among them would
be stunned to discover the tangled web of deception, not only on the dangerous
streets of South Florida but all the way to the top.
In
this gripping follow-up novel to Nine Minutes, Out of Time takes readers
from the sun-drenched flatlands of 1950s Central Florida to the vivid tropical
heat of Fort Lauderdale to the halls of Florida’s Death Row as we finally learn
the gritty backstory of Jason “Grizz” Talbot and the secret he spent his life
trying to conceal.
Not
even Grizz’s inner circle knows his full story—the tragedy that enveloped his
early life, the surprise discovery that made him the government’s most wanted
and most feared, and the depths of his love for Ginny, the tenderhearted
innocent he’d once abducted and later made his wife.
Once
Grizz’s obsession and now the mother of his child, Ginny has spent years
grieving the man she’d first resisted and then came to love. Now remarried to
Tommy, a former member of the gang, the pair have spent more than a decade
trying desperately to live a normal existence far from the violent,
crime-ridden world they’d once carved out on the edge of the Florida
Everglades. For Tommy, especially, the stakes are high. Desperately in love
with Ginny for years, he’s finally living his dream: married to the woman he
never thought he could have. But even with the façade of normalcy—thriving
careers, two beautiful children, and a genuinely happy and loving marriage—they
can’t seem to put the past behind them. Every time they turn around, another
secret is revealed, unraveling the very bonds that hold them together.
And
with Grizz finally put to death, now Ginny has learned secrets so dark, so evil
she’s not even sure she can go on.
Will these secrets tear
their love to pieces? And how far will Grizz go to protect what he still
considers his, even from beyond the grave?
Haven’t read this series
yet, check out Nine Minutes for
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Meet Beth Flynn…
Beth Flynn is a fiction writer who lives and works in
Sapphire, North Carolina, deep within the southern Blue Ridge Mountains. Raised
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Beth and her husband, Jim, have spent the last 17
years in Sapphire, where they own a construction company. They have been
married 31 years and have two daughters and two dogs. In her spare time, Beth
enjoys writing, reading, gardening, church and motorcycles, especially taking
rides on the back of her husband’s Harley. She is a five-year breast cancer
survivor.
Stalk Her
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