Entry #570536, added on 02-28-08 @ 8:30 pm EST
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| The Bakery Murders is Out! | Entry #570536 |
The Bakery Murders, second of The Actor's Guild Paranormal Mystery Series, was released this morning in eBook format! The print version will follow soon.
EXCERPT:
“Jessica,” a voice called in the stillness of the evening, “what are you doing up there? How long were you there in the dark, listening in on my private conversation?” The woman’s tone was stern, demanding as she climbed the stairs, candle in hand, to the top floor of the bakery where their living quarters were. “Where are you? Show yourself this instant!”
Jessica appeared from behind the door leading to her room. “I wasn’t listening to your conversation, Belle. I heard noises coming from downstairs and I thought those rats were back tearing up things and getting into the dough. I was only coming down to shoo them away,” Jessica said.
“You are a liar, little sister,” Belle accused as she finished buttoning her blouse. “You were trying to catch me with James. Admit it!”
“No, I—” Jessica protested, then stopped when the realization of what Belle had said sank in. “James? You were with James? Why, Belle?”
Belle shot a triumphant sneer at Jessica. “Why do you think, Jessie? James is far too much man for a little mouse like you to hold onto. I was merely proving to him I am more of a woman than you will ever be.”
Tears sprang into Jessica’s soft brown eyes, but she tried hard to hold them back as she said, “James loves me, Belle. He does!”
“If you believe that, you are even more gullible than I thought,” Belle snapped. “Do grow up, little sister! James needs a real woman to hold him; someone who can appreciate his manly nature; not a sniveling, whimpering child. Why, he’d be afraid to touch you for fear you would cry or break.”
“You are wrong, Belle. He’s asked me to marry him,” Jessica announced.
“Marry him?” Belle asked with a laugh, setting the candle holder on a hall table. “You little fool; that is just something men say to try to get you out of your knickers. He has no more intention of marrying you than I have of letting you believe he is yours.”
“He is mine,” Jessica said in defiance. “Nothing you can do will change that, Belle. He loves me.”
“Oh, yes, baby sister, he loves you all right. Look at me,” she demanded. “Can’t you see it on my face? Why do you think my lips are red and swollen? Why do you think I was putting my blouse back in order, even as I came up the stairs? Don’t you even know how a woman looks when she has just been ravaged?”
Jessica stared in horror and disbelief at her older sister. How could she? Why did Belle always have to ruin everything for her? Did she really hate her that badly? Why?
Belle let a wide smile spread slowly across her face, proud of having made her little sister speechless. “What’s the matter, Jessie, cat got your tongue?” she asked sarcastically. “Where do you think you are going?”
Jessica didn’t answer, but tried to dodge around Belle on her way to the stairs. Belle caught her arm, attempted to stop her, but Jessica jerked away from her sister’s clutch, whirled again toward the stairway. Her eyes brimmed over with tears as she reached the top of the steep, darkened flight just ahead of Belle. Belle grabbed for Jessica again, spun her around. Jessica fought her way out of Belle’s grip, made to turn toward the stairs once more. Too quickly. She misgauged her footing, lost her balance, tumbled down the stairs headfirst into the darkness.
“Jessie?” Belle called into the darkness. There was no reply. After a moment of silence, Belle crossed the hall, picked up the candle holder, returned to shine the dim light of the taper down the stairs. Jessica didn’t move. Belle hurried down the stairs, knelt beside her sister’s limp form. “Jessica? Stop pretending and answer me this instant!” Though Belle shook her hard, Jessica didn’t move . . . didn’t answer . . . wasn’t breathing.
Belle took a deep breath. This was just like her selfish brat little sister to kill herself and leave Belle to take the blame for it! Just like when they were children; Jessie could never do any wrong; their parents always pampered Jessica and punished Belle for everything, even when Jessie was to blame, like the time the curtain caught on fire because Jessie left the candle too near the window, or the time . . . No, she thought, this time it would be different. She had to make it look like Jessie had killed herself on purpose, but how?
Of course! Jessie had heard James and her making love downstairs in the dark, had heard, maybe even seen them, and she snapped. Jessie was emotionally sensitive and she lost her reason and . . . no, throwing herself down the stairs wasn’t good. Belle herself had fallen down this miserable flight of stairs more than once before and the worst she had suffered was a sprained ankle and a few bruises; the stairs weren’t a reliable enough means of suicide. Then it occurred to her; they still had that rope slung over an exposed rafter upstairs, a remnant of a few months past when they had hauled water up to the second floor twice a week to bathe their bedridden mother. That was how Jessica had killed herself!
Belle hurried up the stairs and lowered one end of the long, sturdy rope down to the first level, ran back down, rolled and scooted Jessica away from the bottom step and into the hallway below where the rope was fastened, tied the rope securely around Jessica’s neck. Then she went back up the stairs and began the laborious process of pulling Jessica’s limp body up, up to the level where it would look as if Jessica had simply climbed onto the railing, put the rope around her neck and jumped off. Belle fastened the free end of the rope to the railing and stood back to scrutinize her handiwork. She watched Jessica’s body turning on the end of the rope but a moment before determining what her next step should be.
Then she took the candle to her own room, looked at herself in the mirror. Yes, she did look distraught after hauling her sister into position, but she needed something more, didn’t she? Tears! She needed to look totally beside herself with grief; after all, she had been guilty of an act which caused Jessica to take her own life and she must feel some remorse, mustn’t she? However, crying was foreign to her. Jessica cried a lot; not Belle. Belle was too strong for tears. She hadn’t cried since . . . she looked at the reflection of her own eyes then and called the memory back to her.
She had been seventeen and so very in love. It was the first time she had been in love—the only time, and Michael Slade had known she loved him, had used her because of that love, had seduced her all too easily. And when Belle had told him she was pregnant, he laughed at her. Laughed at her shame, her pain. He had told her she was just a foolish child herself and he never had any intention of hanging around long enough to give the baby a name. He had walked out of her life as easily as he had taken her virginity that summer, without an ounce of thought or remorse.
Later, before the problem could begin to show on her slender figure, Belle had taken bitter herbs which made her sick for days in order to purge the tiny fetus from her body so no one would ever know. Her mother had thought she was going to die and before it was all over, Belle half wished she had died, because that was the only way she could ever put an end to the pain of her lost love, her lost child, her lost innocence. “Michael—” she whispered and blinked the first tears out of her eyes. “Oh, Michael, why couldn’t you love me? Why couldn’t you stay with me?”
Suddenly, she heard a groan so sad, so heartfelt, it took her by surprise as it burst forth from deep inside her own belly. She was crying, sobbing, inconsolable in her agony; so fierce was this expression of grief, it almost brought her to her knees. Yes, that was the emotion she had to display to the world now for the loss of her sister and her contrition over being part of the reason Jessica had killed herself. In truth, she felt nothing over Jessica’s death; it was the unexpressed heartache she still felt over the death of part of herself so long ago which flowed from her now as vehemently as though it were only yesterday.
She staggered from her room, down the stairs and into the night to find James. He must be the one to share this news first, she decided. It was his fault it had happened, after all; his and Michael’s, she thought.
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