A Teaser of My New Book

Here is a sample of my new book “A MEMORY WORTH DYING FOR.”  Coming soon……..

Bells were ringing in her head, and when she moved the bells turned into trumpets. She tried to rub her forehead with her right hand, but it felt lethargic and heavy. A hard cold metal strained against her wrist.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

What she saw made her gasp.

A steel chain was wrapped several times around her hands and connected to another chain binding her ankles together. She could only move an inch or two. The end of the chains holding her was wrapped around a metal pipe that disappeared down a hole in the middle of the floor. The floor underneath her head was dirt, packed with age and as hard as the chains.

Waves of panic pounded through her temples, and she fought the sick feeling churning in her stomach.

Someone had brought her here and left her to die. She remembered a voice—a low raspy growl she had heard before—in the alley. The same man had made good on his threat to kill her if she returned to Texas. And, no one knew where she was. Sweat popped out on her forehead even as a cold chill paralyzed her body.

Scratching sounds against the wooden walls sounded faint, but distinct. Could it be some kind of animal? Another kind of fear coursed through her veins.

The sounds grew quiet until suddenly, a loud thud banged against one outside wall, then another. Through the crack under the wall beside her, she saw boot-clad feet walking back and forth from the woods to the shed. Should she cry out? Should she beg for her life? Indecision tore her apart. The wrong choice could cost her life.

Each time the feet came back to the shed, there was another dull thump. She saw a small branch poke through the hole at the base of the wall. Someone was piling up branches outside the shed.

While she waited, trying to decide what to do, a strong stench reached her nose—the pungent sharp smell of gasoline.

A flame of fear ripped through her. She looked out under the crack in time to see the whoosh of a fire. Terror made her faint. She strained on the chains.

“Please! Let me out! Please,” she cried. Tears rolled down her cheeks and made silent plops on the hard dirt. She watched in horror as fire raced along the bottom edge of one entire wall and crept along the wall toward the door.

No, not the door! There’s no other way out.

“Lord, please help me.”

Smoke began to filter through the cracks of the old shed, and her nose burned with the strength of the smell. The fire had reached the door and whooshed across it to the other side of the wall.

In panic, she watched as the fire crept toward the last wall of the shed. Smoke was filling the building and reached its tendrils toward her. As much as she could, she covered her mouth with her shoulder and tried to have faith. God would save her if it was His will. If it wasn’t, she prayed He would be merciful.

A single whiff of smoke penetrated her covered lips, and she coughed uncontrollably. The acrid smell stung her eyes and her throat, and her stomach rebelled against the smell of smoke entering her lungs.

“Lord, please help me.”