COLLATERAL DAMAGE Excerpt Tour and Giveaway!
Annie Ogden is back. Like it or not, she’s about to learn about COLLATERAL DAMAGE.
A love story.
When Annie Ogden’s ex-boyfriend Michael Garcia reappears, she has to confront a lie dating back to her time in Iraq. Will she go back to hot, passionate Michael, who has developed a disturbing interest in meth, or stick with her pudgy PI partner and fiancé, Salvatore?
A murder.
The calculus changes when Michael is arrested for murder. When Salvatore refuses to help investigate, Annie is forced to try to find the killer herself. Meanwhile her sister’s creepy husband, Todd, is making more of an ass of himself than usual.
An obsession.
Annie’s problems with three obsessive men suddenly pale in significance when she realizes the killer has set his sights on her. Having changed his mind about helping her, Salvatore finds himself in a desperate race against time, the only man capable of finding the killer before it’s too late.
I’m so excited to be part of this excerpt blog tour to celebrate the release of Frederick Lee Brooke’s book COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Today, I’m sharing with you Chapter 16. To see what comes before. . .and what comes next. . .follow along on the other participating blogs below!
But wait. . .there’s more! Enter to. . .
Win a $25 Amazon gift card AND a signed paperback edition of any book by Frederick Lee Brooke! To win, all you have to do is visit every blog on the 26-day Collateral Damage Excerpt Tour and leave a comment showing that you read the excerpt. That’s it! See the blog list and join the tour …
June 24 Shannon Mayer Chapter 1
June 25 Scott Bury Chapter 2
June 26 Raine Thomas Chapter 3
June 27 Emily Walker Chapter 4
June 28 Simon Jenner Chapter 5
June 29 Amberr Meadows Chapter 6
June 30 Anne Chaconas Chapter 7
July 1 BestsellingReads Chapter 8
July 2 Tyler-Rose Neath Chapter 9
July 3 Naomi Leadbeater Chapter 10
July 4 Mohana Rajakumar Chapter 11
July 5 Helen Hanson Chapter 12
July 6 Marilou George Chapter 13
July 7 J.C. Martin Chapter 14
July 8 Corinne O’Flynn Chapter 15
July 9 Tawdra Kandle Chapter 16
July 10 Martha Bourke Chapter 17
July 11 Connie M. Chyle Chapter 18
July 12 Cyndi Chapter 19
July 13 Kenneth Hoss Chapter 20
July 14 Andrea Kurian Chapter 21
July 15 Andy Holloman Chapter 22
July 16 Marilyn Diekman Chapter 23
July 17 Christine Nolfi Chapter 24
July 18 Jennifer Chase Chapter 25
July 19 Patricia Sands Chapter 26
Chapter 16—Annie
Loud music emanated from the small house. I crossed the front yard, threading through groups of people standing there. No one paid any attention to me. I kept one eye on those blinking Christmas lights and that missile. I had seen such missiles on the tarmac, but never like this. I wondered where they got it. I hoped they had tightened the bolts and secured guy wires to make sure nothing would vibrate loose. Even with no warhead, a missile like that weighed upwards of two hundred pounds.
Fifty people stood in the backyard and another fifty on the deck when I got there, most of them with a can of beer in their hand. The music was so loud, people had to shout. No sign of Michael or Husker. People stood around chatting, enjoying the sunset and the breeze that came up every so often. From back here, I could see the support structure for the Shrike. Six guy wires extended from the top of the pipe structure and looked to be bolted to the roof. Rock solid.
I saw a few familiar faces, but no one I’d been close to. I squeezed through knots of people on the deck and headed into the kitchen through a sliding glass door. Todd would be showing up soon, and I wanted to be as far as possible from him. I was reaching for a bottle out of a cooler when I heard my name being called.
“Annie. Annie!”
The face that emerged from a crowd on the other side of the table was none other than June Sanderson. Finally, someone I knew.
June had been a sniper. She had proved herself many times carrying eighty pounds of equipment and going three days without sleep while on patrol with me. She’d chalked up more than thirty confirmed kills on her two tours before taking a bullet herself. I’d heard about the incident from others. Her right ear had been sliced clean off. The last time I’d seen her was before she left on the patrol where she’d been injured. With a disfiguring injury, they shipped you home.
“Hey, good to see you!” she said as we hugged. Her ear looked completely natural and symmetrical, peeking out from her short brown hair. I was guessing it was a silicone reconstruction. “Husker said you were coming down. How’s life?”
“Really good. I didn’t even pack any stuff. Michael wanted me to come so bad. Basically came and snatched me. I needed a vacation. Where are you living?”
“Right here,” June said. “Over in St. Pete. I’ve got my own bakery. Specialty bakery goods.”
“Really?”
“I’ve got three bakers and four salesgirls plus two guys who do nothing but make deliveries. I already had to rent more space. But it was no problem. I‘m the only business in our mall that’s not going bust. We’re doing well, actually.”
“Where’d you get the idea of a bakery?”
“You want to take a walk? This is too loud.”
We’d been shouting back and forth. I followed her out the sliding glass door and away from all the noise. There were more groups arriving, and more trying to come in than go out. I passed Todd on the deck. He looked dorky, the only person in the whole crowd with a sport coat. He was talking to a couple of guys I didn’t know.
June and I walked as far as the dock area, where huge cranes towered over stacks of containers, and three or four large container ships sat waiting. Workers in hard hats walked up and down along the fence between us and the dock, and cars and trucks drove past. Despite the activity, it was much quieter than the party. The breeze off the water felt good on my face.
“You remember when we got hazed?” I said.
June laughed. “They didn’t have a clue about women, did they?”
“I’ve never drunk as much before or since.”
“I remember your hair,” June said. I groaned to think of it. I had banished this memory. “First they dyed it red. It came out orange. Then they tortured you, going around snipping with scissors like they were going to cut it all off.”
“My hair was a lot shorter anyway. I remember being tied up. And they made us drink shots.”
“Tequila,” June confirmed. “Instead of cutting it, they greased it and made it into two horns that stuck up.”
“I seem to recall we weren’t wearing much.”
“It never got out of hand. They behaved like gentlemen,” June said. “We were in our bras and underwear. They were all running around in briefs. Everyone was out of their minds.”
“Your hair was so short, they didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Someone had a beaver tail from back home. They stuck that on me and made us parade around till we threw up.”
“I didn’t throw up,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You threw up so long I thought they were going to bring you to the hospital. I never knew a person to vomit so much. You probably lost a kidney. Then you passed out.”
“What a lovely image to take home from the party.”
I wondered what other images I’d blanked out since coming home. The human mind included a program for deleting unpleasant memories, like the sight of people getting their legs blown off or your boyfriend laughing at you when you most needed a hug. Only it didn’t delete the memories altogether. It archived them, so that they appeared again in just the wrong moment.
June punched my arm. “You’re only human, right?”
We walked through the port area and I told her about Salvatore—how we’d met, the kinds of investigations we did. I told her how I’d gotten engaged less than a week ago. I told her about losing the ring.
“I always lose something on road trips,” June said. “I lost my best pair of sunglasses on a trip out west with my family when I was fifteen. I lost my virginity on a road trip to Georgia. Boy, was I dumb to go with those guys.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“I lost my best friend on a road trip to South Carolina just before joining the army.”
“What happened?”
June sighed. “Car crash. I was driving. Pouring rain, the car skidded. It was this two-lane road. I wasn’t going too fast, but the other car was. We sideswiped each other. We ended up against a tree. My airbag worked but Laura’s didn’t. She died on the way to the hospital. I had a broken wrist and some cuts. Three guys on a joy ride doing a hundred. Two died, the third one lost a leg.”
“That must’ve been a sad time.”
“It’s what made me join the army. Laura and I were…well, you know, sort of like sisters. We met in kindergarten. We were best friends all the way through grade school, middle school, high school. Our friendship survived every kind of trouble—boyfriends, parents, drugs. We went on that road trip, and boom, it was over. All over in an instant.”
“How did that make you join the army?”
“I wanted to die, Annie. I felt so lost and lonely. It was my fault. Losing her ripped a hole through my heart. A piece of me was gone. But instead of killing me, the army gave me a plan and a structure, so I knew from one day to the next where I had to be. What I had to do. I needed that to survive.”
I thought about how each person had their story. Like the story Michael had told me about Husker on the way down. Or even my own story. And how our stories kept intersecting, how we were all at this party now. I realized I’d had no choice but to come to this party. It was as if I was part of an algorithm that functioned on a different plane. I couldn’t understand it I could only live it.
“I can’t believe you lost your ring,” June said, studying my hand, as if the ring might’ve somehow reappeared.
“Someone probably stole it.”
“How could someone steal it?”
I shrugged and didn’t answer. I would never know. I didn’t want to tell June about what happened with Michael in Atlanta.
“So tell me about this bakery. You never said what gave you the idea.”
We turned on a street that would take us back. It was full dark. We’d been walking more than an hour.
“My own condition was the trigger,” June said. “I had a problem with diarrhea and cramps over in Iraq. I got myself tested and found out I have an intolerance to gluten. I’m a celiac. I can’t eat normal bread without getting sick.”
“I’ve heard of that. You mean like vomiting?”
“Cramps, indigestion, diarrhea. There’s loads of people walking around undiagnosed. You read about it.”
“I thought it was a lifestyle thing. Like vegetarians.”
“For some people. Folks like me don’t have a choice. We have to follow a diet. Otherwise it trashes the small intestine.”
“Ouch. But how do you make bread and cakes and everything without flour?”
“One common gluten-free flour is a mixture of rice and potato flours. Rice is okay, potatoes are okay. We have a very clean, sterile environment. All certified gluten free and everything. Hey, Annie, maybe tomorrow you can see my bakery.”
I thought about my plan to fly back to Chicago. I hadn’t booked any flights yet. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere first thing, if only because of that.
“How far is it from here?”
“Twenty minutes. It’s no problem. We can go there straight from the party, if you feel like it.”
“Do you think it’s going to go all night?”
“Definitely. There’s people here from all over the country, like you. Lots of folks who haven’t seen each other since we were in Iraq. A lot of catching up to do, you know? Annie, I’m so happy to see you.”
We hugged. I was happy to see June, too. June had always been easy to talk to, somehow uncomplicated. Alison was right. I made things complicated.
We were standing in the backyard again, shouting over the music and the noise of the crowd, which looked as if it had doubled. Now both the front and the backyards were full of people. People stood in the street with a six-pack in one hand, a drink in the other. Out back, the deck was so crowded it looked like it would be impossible to even get in. I was perfectly happy to stand on the grass with June, no drink in my hand, just the cool breeze in my face.
Suddenly I became aware of a different kind of energy. To our right, two guys screamed at each other, gesturing and pointing.
“Hey, what do you think he’s so upset about?”
“I don’t know,” June said.
The tall, blond one’s eyes bugged out. A vein stood out on his forehead, he was so worked up. The dark-haired man, more compact in build, shouted a string of insults even louder, not stopping to listen. They were nose to nose, building up to a fight. People moved back to give them space.
“There’s Husker.” I saw Husker threading his way through the knot of people. But he arrived too late.
The shorter one with dark hair threw the first punch. The blond dude had longer arms and got a punch to the side of the other guy’s face. Then the short man unwound and pummeled the blond man with both fists. He looked like someone who sparred in a gym five times a week. His muscles rippled as he punished the blond dude. Blood spattered from cuts on his face.
“Hey, aren’t you guys going to stop them?” June yelled at a group of men standing near her. They looked like they were enjoying the fight.
A crowd had gathered. The blond dude managed to kick the dark-haired man in the groin, but this only set him off again. The dark-haired man threw an open fisted hand in the blond man’s throat. The blond man lay on the ground, bleeding from cuts on his face. He spit out two or three teeth and muttered cuss words.
“What’s going on here? Jonas, why’re you guys fighting?” Husker put a hand on the dark-haired man’s shoulder.
“Man don’t listen to reason,” Jonas said. He massaged his knuckles. He was sweating but otherwise uninjured.
“Yeah, but we’re having a party.”
Jonas pointed to the missile hanging above the house. “Tried to tell him it was a Shrike. He kept saying it was something else—a Sidewinder, Sparrow.”
“Course it’s a Shrike,” Husker said. “Still ain’t nothing worth fighting about. He was just provoking you.”
June knelt down next to the blond man, still flat on the grass. “He needs medical attention. Someone’s got to stitch him up.”
“Goddamn it all,” Husker said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. . .
Frederick Lee Brooke is the author of the widely-acclaimed Annie Ogden mystery series, which includes Doing Max Vinyl, Zombie Candy, and Collateral Damage. The books do not have to be read in order.
Having lived in Switzerland for the past two decades, Brooke has taught English, run a business and learned French, German and Italian. You can find him online at www.FrederickLeeBrooke.com. Sign up for his newsletter and read all about his travels, recipes, and upcoming works!
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