Ariel Anson thinks she has her life in order. She’s young, smart, and
beautiful, even if she doesn’t believe the beautiful part. She’s a paralegal
with a great career and a fiancé who’s a CPA. You just can’t get any
steadier than that. Then she meets private investigator, bounty hunter,
process server Chad Garrett.
What does War-N-Wit, Inc. stand for anyway?
Warlock and Witch? For real? Oh, yes! For real.
Her life as she knows it is over! Instead of organizing corporate
documents and pleadings, she’s chasing bail jumpers and taking down
serial killers. And investigating secret societies. Like Resurrection.
Not everyone can join, just the elite few who remember their past lives.
Only the Seer knows if those memories are truth or fabrication. There’s
just one problem. The new Seer is missing in action. War-N-Wit’s new
assignment is a blast from the past! But whose past?
“I still don’t know who you are!” I exclaimed. “You’re—you’re—talking like a crazy person and I’m sitting here listening, which I still don’t believe—”
“You’re listening because you know I’m right. So let’s cut to the bare essentials. We’ve been here before, you and I, many times, we are one, baby girl, we are each other’s eternal soul mates, each other’s other half, and I know it and you know it. And if nothing else, I intended to establish enough contact so I can find you easier next time. And if you refuse to believe it and believe in us and I have to wait till next time, then I will. But I will find you again. Because you can run but you can’t hide. I just want as much of you as I can get this time so it won’t take so long next time.” He shrugged again. “Last time I didn’t find you till we were both so much older it almost wasn’t worth it. That one was a bitch. And I don’t intend for it to happen again.”
The world stood still, closed in, retreated, kaleidoscoped back out into swirls of scenes of places and times I’d never been, never seen. Hot, bright sun beat down on an arena covered in sand and blood, my heart ripping apart as I looked at the bodies lying so still amidst the roars of the approving, raucous crowd. I felt the biting cold, so cold it burned, coming from the snow stretching out across what I knew, knew with absolute certainty, to be the Russian steppes. I cringed from the visions of the shadowed chambers filled with monstrous man-made instruments of pain and the screams rolling out of them. I stood on the mountains in the mists and heard the faint echo of bagpipes. I saw blue water and shining white sand and smelled the salt air.
I swayed and felt the blood drain out of my face. He stretched his arm out and encircled me quickly, pulling me close. I didn’t pull away.
“Oh, God! Too much too quick, huh? I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d go into total flashback.”
I was beginning to get my bearings back a bit. “I’m fine. And it wasn’t a flashback, it was—it was—it was a whole lot of whatever it was. Which was nothing. I’m crazy, you’re crazy. This is a—shared delusion.” I sat up straight. Time to put the conversation back on a normal frame of reference. “Are you through? I have a lot of shopping to do, are you coming or are you a typical man who doesn’t like to shop?”
He raised his eyebrow. “I’m not a typical anything, baby girl.”
Daytona Bike Week. Biker’s paradise. The perfect place for Chad and
Ariel Garrett to take a few days off and relax with Chad’s buddy Spike
and Ariel’s little sister Stacy.
But nothing ever goes as planned with that magical duo. Trouble just
stalks them like a black cat. A missing agent riding with an outlaw biker
gang, a call from Chad’s past, and War-N-Wit, Inc.’s riding again, with
romance blooming in the midst of danger. From Daytona, the crew heads
back to Vegas and another family wedding. Spike and Stacy are ready to
say “I do!” In the Tunnel of Love Drive-Thru at the Little White Wedding
Chapel in Vegas, of course. It’s become a family tradition.
But what’s supposed to happen in Vegas just refuses to stay in Vegas.
And you’re not going to believe this side-trip!
I peered around the corner of the Tallahassee alley where we’d parked the SUV. Yep, there he was. The skip. Danny Delvecchio, a/k/a Ferret a/k/a Dapper Dandy Dan. At the moment, operating as Father Daniel right in front of the Teen Rescue Center run by St. Benedict’s and soliciting donations with practiced ease. I shoved the wimple completing my nun’s ensemble above my eyebrows. Damn thing kept slipping down.
“One more time, from the top,” Chad said.
“Magic Man! It’s not rocket science! He’s just a sleazy con man parading around as a priest. Which is really low, even for a bail-jumping con man.”
“Sure is. So from the top. You’re going to—”
“I’m going to rush up, grab him and babble about a poor boy doubled over in the alley who’s probably overdosed and come with me now, I need help. That about it?”
“That’s about it.”
“Okay. I’m on it!”
I peered around the corner again. Good a time as any. I hitched my habit up a bit and headed toward him in a sprinting semi-jog.
“Father! Father, I need help—”
Before I could grab his arm, I heard an echo. Not in my voice though.
“Father! Father, I need help!” And a hand, not mine, grabbed Dapper Dandy Dan’s arm from behind.
“Oh! Thank you, sweet Jesus!” The hand dropped Dandy Dan’s arm and grabbed mine. “You’re even better! The Lord provides!”
An older nun hauled me through the door of the Rescue Center, her habit flying out around her legs.
“One of the girls—she’s in labor and I’m all by myself right now, even all our kids are gone this morning! We didn’t know she was pregnant. She’s been hiding it under big sweatshirts. I’ve called for an ambulance but I don’t know if they’ll make it, she’s been in labor for a while, I think, she’s in denial! She refuses to believe she’s having a baby!”
She pulled me through a curtain separating the front room from a back room used as a dormitory. The girl lay on a cot under a sheet she clutched close, refusing to let go. And she was all of fourteen. Maybe.
“Sister Marie! Sister Marie! It’s just a stomachache! You’ve got to let me up, I’m not—” She broke off and writhed in pain. Sister Marie dropped to her knees besides the cot.
“Sandra, you’ve got to listen to me! I’ve called for help but it might not get here in time. You’ve got to let us help you, child. You are having a baby and if you don’t listen to me and open your legs, you can hurt it. Badly. You don’t want that, do you?”
Wisps of gray hair peeked from Sister Marie’s wimple, and a harsh ray of sunlight highlighted every wrinkle on her face. Her hand, visibly work-worn and roughened, smoothed the girl’s hair back from her forehead. Sitting there in a halo of harsh sunlight, face lined with compassion and concern, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I felt like a fraud. Until I remembered. I could help. There was no such thing as coincidence. I was here for a reason.
Gail Roughton is a native of small town Georgia whose Deep South
heritage features prominently in much of her work. She’s worked in a law
office for close to forty years, during which time she’s raised three children
and quite a few attorneys. She’s kept herself more or less sane by writing
novels and tossing the completed manuscripts into her closet.
A cross-genre writer, she’s produced books ranging from humor to
romance to thriller to horror and is never quite sure herself what to expect
when she sits down at the keyboard. Now multi-published by Books We
Love, Ltd., her credits include the War-N-Wit, Inc. series, The Color of
Seven, Vanished, and Country Justice. Currently, she’s working on Black
Turkey Walk, the second in the Country Justice series, as well as the Sisters
of Prophecy series, co-written with Jude Pittman.
Another War-N-Wit plot always seems to be brewing on the back burner,
too, whether she’s actually trying to brew one or not, and usually boils
quicker when she’s trying not to brew one at all.
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