Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) (27 page)

BOOK: Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)
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Coming Soon

K
ATIE BELL WILL RETURN
THIS FALL IN…

FROSTBITE!

Author’s Note

F
irstly
, thank you so much for taking time to read Fireflies. I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know how busy we all are, and appreciate you taking the time to travel with me through this book. If you are willing to take one more moment, please leave a review. They truly help and I really appreciate it.

H
ere’s
a link to my mailing list
. Sign up and you can get first looks at upcoming works by yours truly, as well a sneak peeks into my ridiculous process, as well as awesome bonus content. (The first short story staring Katie Bell,
Smashed
, will be out in early September and will be available
exclusively
to people on my list. All you have to do is write an honest review for Fireflies, sign up for the mailing list and email me a picture of the review). I hate few things in life, but spam is one of them. I will only send you emails letting you know cool things and updates on how books are progressing.

I’m also on social media, and I love to hear from readers!
Here’s my Facebook
, and here’s my
Twitter
.

W
ant to read ARC’s
? I’m looking for more people! Limited spots though, so sign up!

S
econd
, this novel would not have been finished without the support of my family, a few of my awesome friends, and an awesome editor, so I want to thank all of them.

I
wrote
this novel over the course of four years. (Believe it or not the next three Katie Bell Mysteries are almost done so don’t worry about waiting long!). I wrote Fireflies in Oregon, Washington, California, on a plane to Washington DC, in Arizona, and in Texas. It’s strange to carry characters with you wherever you go, and I hope you enjoyed your time with them as much as I did.

A
s for the
location of where this all takes place, I named the town Asheville as a nod towards a town I lived in for a large portion of my life. It’s based loosely on a town I went to school in, but it’s… larger. More spread out. The urban sprawl of LA, but in a more Oregon esque relaxed small-town feel.

The same goes for the City where Arthur Bell and the dedicated members of the FBI work. It’s a bit of a mishmash of several cities I’ve spent time in, and I’ve taken the liberty of sort of blending them together, like making a breakfast smoothie.

There are parts that feel like Portland Oregon, others that are supposed to be closer to San Francisco and Seattle, and still others are a bit of the City of Angels itself. As for
where
the city is, it’s in the Pacific North West.

Who knows, our hero’s may well yet visit real cities with street names that aren’t duck taped together from actual places… you’ll just have to keep reading to find out.

D
etails and facts
I got wrong about police and FBI procedure are entirely my fault. I’m friends with some people in law enforcement, and have done a fair amount of research, but sometimes I just get things wrong, and sometimes liberties must be taken for the demands of the story.

K
atie Bell
and company will be back soon in FROSTBITE. I thought you might want a quick peek. Here’s a first look at an early chapter from FROSTBITE, (book #2 in The Katie Bell Mysteries).

O
kay Katie
. Take it away…

50
Frostbite

M
onday
, October 21
st
, 2013

A
fter work
Katie hung out for a while and drank coffee and talked to her boss Nathan Jones. He had seen things, but had a youthful boyish charm that was downright infectious to anyone who came into contact with him.

Katie had only been on the job for a month but she felt like she was really getting the hang of it. It was the perfect distraction for her outside of schoolwork, and a little extra spending cash didn’t hurt either.

A
fter an hour Katie
realized she really should leave work and get on with her day, but on some level she didn’t want to. At least her classes’ year two weren’t so mind numbly dull, as they had been for year one.

K
atie got
into her brand new Mazda 3 hatchback in metallic blue and closed her eyes. She wanted to just take a second and enjoy that new car smell. The car was a little more expensive than she honestly should have gotten, but after the accident and the total destruction of her Camry she hadn’t been able to help herself. Arthur had grumbled about the car, mostly because of the color, but in the end he had co-signed.

T
he drive
from work to her and Tiffany’s apartment was a total of ten minutes (that was with traffic and hitting the three lights between the shop and her building).

Katie parked across the street from the cute duplex and found herself feeling particularly buzzed from the cappuccino she had been sipping on while she had talked to Nathan. He really was a fascinating creature. He had graduated with a BS in environmental sciences, and had spent two years in the Peace Corps before returning to the Pacific Northwest.

She was still daydreaming about how blue his eyes were while she opened the door to the apartment and entered it.

From the front door it was easy to see the kitchen of the apartment, across the carpeted living room. There was a kitchen table, pine, picked out at one of the local antique shops by both Tiffany and Katie on the weekend before classes had started. Sitting at it was a man Katie had not seen in almost five months.

K
atie still didn’t know
his name, but the last time she had seen him, he had killed two people right in front of her. Of course in one of those cases (and arguably in both of them) he had saved Katie’s life in the process. The mystery man. The one who had been clad in a North Face jacket.

Not today. Today he was wearing a black turtleneck, and a pair of matching black dress pants. He had on black leather wingtips too, and there was a heavy trench coat dropped over the back of his chair. He noticed Katie right away and gestured for her to come to him.

Katie felt her heart skip a beat as she closed the door behind her and made her way to the kitchen. Tiffany was sitting across from the mysterious man. Katie had never seen her roommate look so angry.

“This isn’t the time,” Tiffany said to him, but the man ignored her.

He looked Katie up and down and pointed at the chair between him and Tiffany.

“Sit,” he said.

Katie reached into her bag and brought out a small dull black object, slightly bigger than a cigarette case.

“I prefer to stand,” she said.

The man looked bemused at the object. “You going to try and use that on me?”

“Who said anything about try,” she snapped.

He stared at her for a long moment. Katie felt a chill run down her spine.

He pointed at the chair again. “Katie Bell, sit.”

“Why should I?”

Tiffany, who had been looking back-and-forth between the two of them, slammed her fist down on the kitchen table. “Katie. You should listen to him. Please darling, take a seat.”

Katie hesitated.

“You should listen to your friend Katie Bell. It’s time that you and I talk.”

BOOK: Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)
6.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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