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Ravinia felt her pulse slow down and her awareness heighten. She looked into the wolf’s heart and sensed its fiercely protective nature.
“Friend or foe?” she asked in a whisper, but it just turned away and padded back to the woods. As Ravinia continued toward the orange neon sign of the motel about a mile ahead, she caught sight of the wolf’s gray shadow flickering in and out between the trees, tracking her progress.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed SOMETHING WICKED! I can’t tell you how much fun I have writing “The Colony” books with my sister. (It’s kind of like my dream job!) We’ve plotted out a complete series around Siren Song and the women within its gates and have a great time with it. We both love the Oregon Coast and a touch of the paranormal. And come on, who isn’t intrigued by a cult of sorts. What started out with WICKED GAME and WICKED LIES has grown and we’ve come up with ideas for a continuing series. The next book, WICKED WAYS, takes off where SOMETHING WICKED leaves off and should be out in late 2014, so look for it!
In the next couple of months I’ll have some other new books out, too. This July, TELL ME, my hardcover set in Savannah, Georgia, will be on the shelves. In TELL ME we’ll meet a few characters who were first introduced in THE NIGHT BEFORE and THE MORNING AFTER, two previous books. Yes, reporter Nikki Gillette and Detective Pierce Reed are once more investigating a new—or rather an old—case! The kicker is that now Pierce and Nikki are engaged, (Yep, things heated up in the intervening years.) The trouble is that Nikki’s starting to get cold feet a few weeks before the wedding. Let’s face it, her family isn’t known for solid marriages. Now, Nikki’s a true crime writer and working on her third book, which centers around Blondell O’Henry, Savannah’s most infamous and reviled killer. Blondell, who was found guilty of killing her own daughter and wounding her other children, is being released from prison on a technicality and Nikki not only smells a story, but a best seller in the making. If Blondell, who has protested her innocence from the get-go, isn’t the killer, then who is? Nikki’s not buying Blondell’s story—the woman is a known liar and narcissist, and, to make things worse, the victim? Blondell’s daughter, Amity? She was Nikki’s best friend. Is Blondell truly guilty, a twisted killer who would take her own daughter’s life? Or was she set up? One way or another, Nikki intends on getting to the truth, never realizing that she’s putting her own life on the line.
Fast on the heels of TELL ME, READY TO DIE, my next Grizzly Falls book featuring Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli, will be published. READY TO DIE is the fifth book in this series and this time the entire Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department is in the crosshairs of a methodical and determined killer’s sights. He’s made a list of victims and, seeking a dark revenge, starts taking them out, one by one. In a race against time, Pescoli and Alvarez try to outwit and foil the killer, each knowing that she may be the next target on his hit list.
Of course I’m working on future stories as well, those written with Nancy Bush as well as others. For a full list of my novels or excerpts about the books, just log onto www.lisajackson.com. Or, if you’d rather, catch up with me on Facebook where I post most days and you can learn about current, past and future projects. There’s always a lot to talk about on the fan page, more information on the books, contests and conversations, so log on!
Keep reading!
Lisa Jackson
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lisa Jackson’s
TELL ME,
coming in July 2013!
“Just tell me what you know about that night. Let me tell your side of the story to the rest of the world. If you didn’t try to kill the children, if you didn’t mean to hurt them, then tell me the truth. Let me be your mouthpiece. Trust me, I can help!”
The eyes beyond the glass didn’t so much as blink. I wasn’t even sure that the killer had heard my question. Then again, did someone who had tried to murder kids in cold blood ever hear anyone else? Ever really try to explain?
As I sit in my tiny stall, an open booth with an uncomfortable stool, a heavy telephone receiver and thick glass separating the free from the incarcerated at the prison, I try my best to be convincing and earnest, hoping to wring the truth from the person on the other side of the clear barrier.
But it seems impossible.
The prisoner suspects I’m up to something; that I’m using the information I get from this interview for my own purposes, which, of course isn’t far from the truth.
As I stare through the smudged glass to the person who’s agreed to be contacted, a person whom the public has reviled, a person with whom I’ve been through so much, I wonder if I’ll ever get through; if the truth will ever be told. Suspicion smolders in the inmate’s eyes, and something more too, something almost hidden. Hopelessness? Fear? Or is it accusation?
As if she knows.
But then, why wouldn’t she?
It isn’t as if we’re strangers.
My heart trips a bit and I want to bolt, to hide. But I force myself to sit on the worn-down stool where thousands have sat before me.
“I can help,” I plead and cringe at the tone of desperation in my own voice.
Her expression falters a bit, and even dressed in drab prison garb, without makeup, her once shiny hair streaked with gray, a few pesky wrinkles appearing on what was once flawless skin, she’s a beauty with high cheekbones, large eyes, and rosebud lips. The years, since the horrific crime for which she’s accused, have been surprisingly kind.
There is noise in this hallway, on my side of the thick window, whispered voices from other booths filtering my way as there is no privacy here, not with the cameras mounted on the ceiling, the guards watching over the line of free people attempting to speak to inmates.
I hear sobbing from the elderly woman to my right as she tries to speak in low tones. I saw her shuffling in before me. She wears a bandanna on her head and dabs at her eyes with a hankie. Her wedding ring is loose on her finger, her sadness palpable.
The stool to my left is vacant, a man in his thirties with tattoos climbing up his arms and a neatly trimmed soul patch the only hair on his head, storming angrily out, his footsteps pounding away angrily.
But I can’t be distracted by the hum of conversation, or the shuffle of footsteps, or an occasional burst of laughter. There is little time and I want only one small thing: the truth and all of it.
“Come on, I can help. Really,” I insist, but in my little nook, where I can sense the prison’s cameras filming this interview, all remains silent, the person staring through the glass at me, quiet as death.
