Double Strike
by Gretchen Archer
We are delighted to welcome author Gretchen Archer to Omnimystery News today.
Gretchen's third crime caper to feature casino super spy Davis Way is Double Strike (Henery Press; October 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) is published today, and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt from the first chapter.
— ♦ —
I DID'T GET MARRIED BECAUSE THE lightning protection system at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino failed. Miserably. It's there to intercept bolts of lightning trained on the thirty-story building, then safely conduct them to the ground. It didn't. The call came at three-eighteen, dead of night.
"Davis. Wake up." The man shaking me was Bradley Cole, who also didn't get married because of the lightning strike. "It's Jeremy."
"Who?" I shot straight up, hair flipping everywhere. "What?"
Bradley Cole and I live in a condo on the seventh floor of the Regent, a fourteen-story premier residence on Beach Boulevard in Biloxi, Mississippi. It's a short drive, five miles or so, to and from the Bellissimo, where I work as part of an elite security team. Our bedroom is an entire wall of hurricane-proof glass (plus three normal walls) that looks out over the Gulf, and at this hour, the view was usually a black hole or an astronomy show, but tonight it was a blinding fireworks display. Hundreds of cracked white lines snapped in tandem across the ocean.
I turned to Bradley. "Is my mother here?"
"No, Davis! Wake up! My mother is here. Your mother is at the Bellissimo and it's on fire." He put the phone to my ear. "It's Jeremy. Talk to him."
So, that was how Friday, the first Friday in October, the day before my wedding, started. With a bang.
***
The storm had blown a safe enough distance out to sea by the time I'd splashed water on my face, thrown on clothes, and found my keys. Bradley in his bathrobe and his mother on his heels in hers walked me to the door. Bradley gave me a hug. "Be careful." I fit perfectly under his chin. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Bradley," Anne Cole, my future mother-in-law — super short hair the color of ice, Senior Slammers tennis champ, can whip up a gourmet meal from three butter beans and a hot dog bun — petted his arm. "You don't need to go. It's too dangerous."
What about me? Chopped liver? Having spent a few quickie holidays with her, and now a long — and by long, I mean time had come to a complete standstill — four days with her as our houseguest, it was becoming increasingly clear that Bradley Cole's mother would prefer he stay single. Or at least not marry me. It was more about the fact that I'd been married before (twice) and that I was from Alabama than anything else. She also had a lot to insinuate about the fact that I didn't know my way around a kitchen, but did know my way around firearms.
I hit the road. My parents, my grandmother, my sister, and my niece were in a burning building. I could worry about my future mother-in-law later.
Beach Boulevard was five lanes of a First Responder Parade. I snuck into traffic on a squeal and several angry honks, then hitched my Volkswagen to a white Crown Victoria, light bar flashing and siren blaring, with MEMA, Mississippi Emergency Management Association, on the driver door inside a black and gold shield. I trailed him to the expanded Bellissimo parking lot, three blocks from the edge of the property and growing. He jumped a curb, parking his front two wheels on the beach. I jumped the curb and parked all the wheels of my black doodlebug in the sand. I grabbed a jacket, hat, and sunglasses, because for the most part, I work in cloak and dagger. I unlocked the glove compartment and got my car gun, a single-action .22 Magnum. I tucked it at my hip. Just in case.
The rain had stopped and the wind had died down. I ran to the waterline and got a good look at the building from behind. Smoke billowed, flames shot out into the night, and three helicopters dangled red water buckets over the roof. Ash floated like snow. The fire appeared to be contained to one corner of the thirtieth floor. The top. The penthouse. Where my boss, Richard Sanders, and his wife Bianca Casimiro Sanders, live.
I ran.
Our team of four — me, my boss No Hair (who Bradley calls Jeremy), Fantasy and Baylor — had just gotten new Bose Bluetooth earpieces. I gave mine a tap.
"Where is everyone?"
"I'm in the lobby." It sounded like Fantasy was in the Superdome. "Baylor's with me, but don't even try to come in the front door because you'll be crushed. The last two floors are being evacuated, and these people are in a hurry."
"Have you seen my parents?" I plowed through sleeping flowerbeds. "Granny? Meredith? Riley?" I'd booked my parents at one end of a suite, my grandmother at the other end, my sister and my niece in an adjoining guest room.
"No, Davis," she said, "but I wouldn't be able to pick my own mother out of this crowd."
"What about Mr. Sanders and Bianca?" I jogged around the south side of the parking garage on the Gulf side. "Did they get out?" It looked like the ocean was on fire with the elongated reflection of the blaze echoing across the water.
"Your family's fine, Davis." No Hair's big voice boomed in my ear. "They're across the street. Everyone find a stairwell and get upstairs."
Upstairs was on fire.
— ♦ —
Photo provided courtesy of
Gretchen Archer
Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at GretchenArcher.com, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
Double Strike
Gretchen Archer
A Davis Way Crime Caper
A VIP invitation to an extraordinary high-stakes gaming event, as thieves, feds, dance instructors, shady bankers, kidnappers, and gold waiters go all in …
Bellissimo Resort and Casino Super Spy Davis Way knows three things: Cooking isn't a prerequisite for a happy marriage, don't trust men who look like David Hasselhoff, and money doesn't grow on Christmas trees. None of which help when a storm hits the Gulf a week before the most anticipated event in Bellissimo history: the Strike It Rich Sweepstakes. Securing the guests, staff, and property might take a stray bullet. Or two.
Bellissimo Resort and Casino Super Spy Davis Way has three problems: She's desperate to change her marital status, she has a new boss who speaks in hashtags, and Bianca Sanders has confiscated her clothes. All of which bring on a headache hot enough to spark a fire. Solving her problems means stealing a car. From a dingbat lawyer.
Bellissimo Resort and Casino Super Spy Davis Way has three goals: Keep the Sanders family out of prison, regain her footing in her relationship, and find the genius who wrote the software for futureGaming. One of which, the manhunt one, is iffy. Because when Alabama hides someone, they hide them good.
Mac
