Authors: Sharon Sala
Lunatic Revenge
The bad guys are after a hidden fortune that belongs to Flynn O’Mara’s dying father—they think Tara can use her psychic powers to find it for them. She’ll need plenty of help from her spirit friends if she and Flynn are going to get out of this trouble alive.
“Look out!” Tara screamed, as the sports car spun toward them.
The car hit them twice—first on the driver’s side fender, then as Flynn’s car started to spin, again on the back bumper.
“Hold on!” Flynn yelled, as their car flipped once, then went airborne, over the guard rail, and into Boomer Lake.
Tara came to as the car was sinking nose first into the water and quickly unbuckled her seat belt. If they were going to survive, they would have to get themselves out.
“Flynn! Unbuckle your seatbelt. I’m going to roll down the windows so we can swim out.”
Then she saw Flynn, unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel. Frantically, she unbuckled his belt and tried to pull him toward her, but the steering wheel was too tight against his chest.
“I can’t breathe,” he groaned. “Help me, Tara, help me.”
Tara began screaming at Flynn, begging him to move as the water rushed up to their chests—then their necks. She was holding Flynn’s face out of the water, pushing him as far up as she could until their heads were touching the roof of the car. She couldn’t believe this was happening. It was just like her dream. They were going to die. Where was her backup when she needed them?
“Millicent! Henry! Uncle Pat! Someone! Anyone! Help! Help!”
Seconds later, the water was over their heads.
Book three of the
Lunatic Life
Series
by
Sharon Sala
Bell Bridge Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-190-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-179-1
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 by Sharon Sala
My Lunatic Life
(excerpt) Copyright © 2010 by Sharon Sala
The Lunatic Detective
(excerpt) Copyright © 2011 by Sharon Sala
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
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Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo credits:
Cover Art © Christine Griffin
Girl (manipulated) © Robert Clay | Dreamstime.com
Tornado and road © Victor Zastol`skiy | Dreamstime.com
:
Mrl
:01:
My Lunatic Life
The Lunatic Detective
and
The Boarding House
“I can’t breathe. Help me, Tara, help me.”
More water was coming into the car now, creeping up their waists, to their chests, then their necks. Tara was holding up Flynn’s head, but it wasn’t the water that was restricting his breath, it was the broken rib that had punctured one of his lungs.
Tara couldn’t believe this was happening, and that she was going to die before she had a chance to grow up.
Where was her backup when she needed them?
Millicent! Henry! Uncle Pat! Someone! Anyone! Help! Help!
Seconds later, the water was over their heads.
The alarm went off.
Tara woke with jerk and then flew out of bed before she realized where she was. She took a deep breath, still locked into the dream that she and Flynn had been drowning.
“OMG, that was seriously wack.”
She sank back onto the side of the bed, and didn’t realize until she turned off the alarm that it was raining. That explained the water dream, but not why she had seen her and her boyfriend in danger.
For most people, assuming a dream had real meaning would have been silly, but Tara wasn’t like everyone else. Not only did she see ghosts, but she was psychic, too. It made every day of her life a challenge. What bothered her now was that for some time she’d felt something dark hanging around Flynn. She just couldn’t get a handle on whether it was a dark spirit, or a living, breathing baddy?
She’d talked to Millicent and Henry, the two ghosts who lived with her and her Uncle Pat, but for whatever reason they’d been mum. Either that meant she was on the wrong track, or they weren’t supposed to tell. There were rules where they came from about what they could and couldn’t reveal—stuff that Tara didn’t fully understand.
So it was raining, which meant the walk to school would suck eggs. Still in a bad mood from the dream, Tara made a quick trip to the bathroom and then headed for the kitchen to start the coffee for her uncle. With this weather, his day was going to be miserable too, reading meters for the City of Stillwater.
She could hear voices as she headed down the hall and, when she reached the living room, realized the television was on. Uncle Pat must already be up, only when she got to the kitchen, it was empty. She backtracked into the living room, and this time noticed his feet propped up on the end of the sofa. He’d fallen asleep watching TV again.
Smiling, she leaned over to wake him and immediately smelled the liquor on his breath, then saw the empty bottle on the floor beside him. Her heart dropped. Not again. He’d been down in the dumps ever since he’d stopped going out with Flynn’s mom, Mona, and this was always his cure-all when things didn’t go as planned. It used to scare her, finding him in this condition, but not any longer. She’d made up her mind months ago that they weren’t quitting and moving ever again, no matter how many jobs he got fired from. She yanked the pillow out from under his head, and the remote out of his hands.
“Uncle Pat. Wake up. You’re going to be late for work.”
Pat Carmichael groaned then blinked as the television went dead.
“Huh
. . .
what
. . .
I uh
. . .
”
“Wake up! You’re going to be late for work,” she said, and took the empty bottle into the kitchen and dumped it into the trash.
She was making coffee when he stumbled into the kitchen.
“Hey, honey, this rain is really coming down and I’m not feeling so good. I think I’ll call in sick and you can take the car to school, okay?”
Tara’s heart sank. “No, Uncle Pat, it’s not okay. I’m not taking the car, because you’ve got thirty-three minutes to be out of his house or you’re gonna be late for work.”
Pat frowned. Tara had never challenged him like this before.
“Listen here, you don’t—”
Tara’s hands began to shake. “No, you listen. If you lose this job and decide you’re going to quit on this city and move again, you’ll be leaving without me. I’m done, Uncle Pat. I have less than a year to graduate high school and I’m never changing schools again. Thanks to the reward money I got for finding Bethany Fanning when she got kidnapped, I have money to go to college and I’m staying here to do it. Are you going to stay with me, or am I going to be part of the past you’re still trying to outrun?”
Pat was blindsided, and at the same time, ashamed. He put his arms around his niece and hugged her.
“I will never leave you behind, and I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to clean up. Make the coffee strong.”
