I’m quite excited by the progress I’m making on my Sam Stone prequel novella, Sam Stone Came Home, which will be available free once it’s finished for everyone on my mailing list. To pique your interest, here’s a short excerpt from the first chapter. I hope you like it!

A gust of wind swirled a miniature vortex of brown leaves across the sidewalk ahead of me. A shaft of sunlight broke through the thick, dark overcast, bouncing off the water of the reservoir, causing it to sparkle and shimmer for a few seconds before the clouds consumed the light once more. I was on my fourth lap around the large manmade lake. I checked my watch—just barely time for two more before I would have to head home and get cleaned up for work, so I picked up the pace. I’d learned the hard way once that increasing my pace safely meant increasing my turnover rate—taking more strides per minute—rather than lengthening my stride. By taking advice from some random stranger, I shredded my left hamstring in the last mile of what had promised to be my personal best time in the Parkersburg Half Marathon by lengthening my strides. To be fair, the end of a hot, humid race is probably not the best time to try out running advice from random strangers.

I managed to shave a full minute off my lap time on the last go around, and the burn of lactic acid in my quad muscles was getting overwhelming as I pulled up at the corner I used as a start and stop point. Normally, I’d have taken time for a cooldown lap and enjoyed the scenery of the Crescent Hill Reservoir, by far my favorite place in the entire city of Louisville. I’d come here almost daily from the week I moved here from my hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia two years previous. It was my happy place. A place where I could come and quiet the noise and enjoy some tranquility amid a life full of chaos and confusion. I’d seen proposals there, as well as a wedding. I saw more than one relationship end there, too. But for me, it was a place to talk to God and listen, too. Not that he ever said anything out loud. But he talked to me nonetheless, of that I have no doubt. He even asked me a few questions. The one I remember most was when he asked, “Did I ask you to go to seminary, or was that your idea?” That was an embarrassing moment, when I realized I’d run away six hours from home to go to a school that I’d convinced myself I was called to, when it was just an excuse to get away from dealing with real life in the Mountain State.

Anyway, as I said, I would normally take a last lap to catch my breath, but the man leaning on the railing twenty feet in front of me gave me reason to think I may not get to take time for cleaning up.

“Never understood this running thing.” He tossed a piece of popcorn over the railing into the water and smiled to himself as several ducks squabbled over it. “Unless I’m about to get hit by a bus or miss dinner, don’t really see much use in it.”

I put my hands on the railing beside him and stretched out my left calf and hamstring, the one I’d blown out and that still never felt quite right. “Never know when I’ll need to chase down a bad guy.” I switched legs. “You’re clearly never going to do it, so I guess it’s up to me.”

He laughed and emptied the dregs from the bottom of his bag of corn into the water, causing quite a scrum among the waterfowl. “They want to run bad enough, far as I’m concerned, it’s up to the police.” He emphasized the first syllable. PO-lice. I don’t know why, but that always made me happy. “You got J Lo here?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Why?”

J Lo was my car. Contrary to what people always think, the name had nothing to do with the famous singer/actress. It was short for jalopy, and that’s what she was, a twenty-year-old relic of a car that ran fine when it started, but only started when it wanted to, and we were fast moving into the season where she wouldn’t want to. I’d seen a hoodie once that said, “I don’t winter well” across the front, and I immediately thought of J Lo. She was usually fine until the temps dropped below freezing, at which point she just wasn’t fine anymore. I’d had parts replaced, added fuel stabilizer, had it looked at by multiple mechanics, all to no avail. She just didn’t like cold weather.     

Solomon Moore waved his hand to tell me to follow and moseyed toward the steps. He never seemed to be in a hurry. But I always inexplicably had to consciously hurry myself to keep up with him. He talked to me over his shoulder as we descended the stairs to the street. “I’ll give you a ride. Got your piece?”

I laughed. “I was running. I’m wearing sweats. Where would I put my piece?” 

He sighed. “I have failed as your teacher. Get a twenty-two, put it in an ankle holster.” He unlocked the door to his car, parked at the bottom of the steps in front of a hydrant, with the key.  

After waiting for him to lean over and unlock it, I opened the passenger door and folded myself inside. It was a 1965 Mustang. Fun to ride in, but not a blast to get my frame, a couple inches over six feet and lean but muscular, down into. “Well, for one, I can barely pay my rent on what you pay me. Where am I going to put the scratch together to buy another gun, even a pea shooter like that?”

He fired up the engine. “I pay you more than you’re worth. Get a second job.”

I laughed. “I never know when I’ll be working with you. Who gives a job to somebody who has no idea when they’re available to work? And anyway, why do I need to carry a piece when I’m running. This is Louisville, not East LA.”

He dropped it into first and popped the clutch, laying a patch of rubber. Unlike him, the Mustang always seemed to be in a hurry. He’d fixed it up from just a rusty frame and named it Scout, after Tonto’s horse in The Lone Ranger, his favorite show growing up. “You need a piece because you never know when I’m going to pick you up and ask if you have your piece on you.”

“And that’s another thing.” I braced myself against the dash. “How did you know where to find me. You got a GPS tracker on me or something? Yellow!”

He shifted into second and gunned it through the yellow light. “You’re maybe the most predictable person in the world. You always run before you come to the office. Always.”

We managed to survive the trip to his office with no tickets and only one car run off the road. But this led to the question of why he’d picked me up in the first place.

I climbed out of the car. “I was coming here in an hour anyway.” I got there first, so out of habit, I tried his front doorknob, knowing it would be locked.  Why’d you bother to pick me up?”

It was not, in fact, locked. I opened my mouth to ask why as I swung the door open, but I was interrupted by excited shouts. “Surprise!”

Yeah, did I mention it was my birthday? Something I’d done my best not to draw any attention to. Solomon had access to it through my employee information, but I had no idea he’d pay any attention to that, though, in retrospect, I guess I should have. The other people there were mostly folks I knew through him, though there was a couple in the back of the room, Jack and Gates Powell, that lived in the same apartment building I did. The husband was still attending seminary, though not the one I’d dropped out of. Gates was good people, a genuinely gentle soul. Jack always came across a little skeevy to me, but I liked him because Gates did, and I didn’t have many friends in Louisville, even after two years, so we hung out. They didn’t seem to mind my third wheeling with them, so I put my feelings aside in the interest of not eating alone every single night.

“Thanks, everyone.” I waved and tried to smile. “I’m guessing Solomon put you all up to this.”

Rashida, Solomon’s secretary, stepped from the crowd and hugged me. “Good thing he did, too, Sugar. Nobody should be alone on their birthday.”  

I tried to be a typical tough guy. I was an apprentice private detective, after all, under the tutelage of one of the true OG gumshoes. Solomon Moore was a knight born out of time, with a moral code he stuck to, even when it was hard. So, I wanted to be like him. Truth was, though, I missed my family and was feeling really blue over being away from them on my birthday. This crowd of smiling faces really put a dent in that. I thought the day was about as good as it could get. But I was wrong.

“Sorry we’re late.” My breath caught in my throat at the voice coming from behind me. “I guess we missed the surprise.”

I turned, swallowing the lump in my throat. I excused myself from Rashida and ran to hug first my mom and then my dad. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”

Mom patted my cheek. “We didn’t want to miss our baby boy’s birthday, so when your boss called us, your dad took a vacation day, and we drove down.”