Star-Crossed

Star-Crossed, the second novel in my Shakespeare mystery series, is due out in September, 2020. But, for those who would like a sneak peak, here is the first chapter.

Sunday

6:00 AM

Celia felt the breeze on her left cheek. It was soft and slightly salty. She breathed in. Once. Twice. The air that filled her nostrils was likewise a little salty and earthy, like the smell inside an old and damp warehouse by the ocean. 

Her head lolled back and forth. Her neck felt extremely sore. She moved it a little more and winced with pain. 

Ugh, had she fallen asleep on the couch with the window open again? Her apartment was close to the water. Sometimes, when there was a solid wind off the ocean, her apartment would smell like a combination beach slash Red Lobster for days. 

She reached up to see if she could massage her neck… and froze. 

Her hand, her hand could not reach her neck. She couldn’t move her hand at all. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. 

She tried to reach up with her left hand now, but she couldn’t move it either. 

Her eyes flew open. She wasn’t in her apartment. She wasn’t inside anywhere. She tried to scream, but the gag in her mouth muffled her cries. 

Panicked, her eyes started to frantically search around her. Immediately she saw that both of her hands were bound to something that looked like a hospital gurney. Except, this one looked like a gurney you would see in a haunted house that had gone with the hospital theme. It was ancient and rusted, the pad, which she could barely make out underneath her, was stiff and badly yellowed. The whole apparatus creaked as she attempted to sit up.

Only, she couldn’t sit up. Her calves were bound to the thing just like her hands. And rolling off was not an option because there were three large leather straps across her body, one over her chest, another just below her stomach, and a third across her knees. The best she could manage was to lift her head enough to look at her surroundings. 

What she saw both confused and terrified her. She wasn’t inside. At least, not exactly. She was inside a building, but the building had no roof. Some of the walls were crumbling and very few of the windows she could see had glass. The walls that remained looked old, very old. They were made of that burnt red brick so typical of buildings in the city that were built in the nineteenth century. She looked up through where the roof should have been and saw one or two seagulls soaring above her. The blare of a nearby ship’s horn confirmed her suspicions: she was near the water. Very near. 

But, wherever she was, she had never been there before. A tear fell down her cheek. She had never been this terrified before in her life. How did she get here? All Celia could remember was going out to get a few drinks with her friends and then going home. 

Only, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember actually getting home. She was GOING home that was for sure. She remembered walking down the street outside the bar. She remembered ordering a ride. She remembered getting in the car. She even remembered that the driver had offered her a bottled water, which was very nice and she had taken and then… 

Nothing. She did not remember anything after that. She searched every inch of her mind to try and come up with some reason why she was here. Some explanation. But, all she could remember was getting into the car… 

Celia was well-liked. She didn’t think she had any mortal enemies at least. Certainly not someone who would leave her out here to die strapped to an old hospital gurney. She tried to fight back tears but then realized there was no point in that. She tried to cry out again, but that was pointless. Wherever she was, there was no one close enough to hear her guttural cries muffled by the rubber strap pulled tightly through her mouth and secured around the back of her head.

That’s it then, she thought. I’m going to die. I’m going to die out in the middle of nowhere because some sick psychopath-

“Awake are we?” 

The voice from behind her stopped her thoughts like a car going full speed slamming into a concrete wall. Everything stopped. She waited, unable to see whoever had just spoken to her. 

“Come now,” the voice said, soothingly, “nothing will come from nothing, speak again.”

Celia lay still, so paralyzed with fear she might not have been able to move even if she were not firmly tied to the gurney. 

“Oh,” the male voice continued, “that’s right. The gag. You can’t answer me, can you?”

She heard the shuffling of footsteps and whoever this came closer. She did not recognize the voice in the least but heard another sound as well. It sounded like another hospital bed or something with wheels being rolled over rough gravel. She turned her head from side to side, but could not see anything.

Then, whoever it was moved to her left and a long shadow fell over her. She turned her head to her left and looked. 

There, a few feet from her was a young man she had never seen before. He had long, dark hair, far too long to be fashionably for a man, at least amongst her friends. He also had a full beard. Not a little stubble, but like a full mountain-man beard. He looked like a deranged lumberjack. Celia wasn’t sure exactly what image would have been pleasing for her at that moment to conjure in her mind’s eye, but deranged lumberjack definitely wasn’t it. He was wearing a plain, nondescript long-sleeved shirt and a tattered old baseball hat with what looked like a big C on it. But, she couldn’t be sure about that. 

But, as he came closer she noticed something else that jogged her memory with all the force as though she had just been tossed into an icy cold bathtub. It was his eyes. His eyes were like ice. They were such a light shade of blue they bordered on silver. Now, she remembered. She remembered being struck by those same eyes last night. 

They were the eyes of her driver. They were the eyes of the man who had given her that bottled water. Now she realized why she could not remember anything and how she had gotten here. Her blood ran cold with the thoughts of what was going to come next. Celia wasn’t an idiot. She had been to all the safety talks when she was an undergrad. She had seen all the videos. She had even heard stories from some of the other girls in her class - though those were second hand at best. Another tear dropped slowly down her cheek.

“Hello, Celia,” the man said, now standing alongside her. 

He paused and then made an exaggerated gesture of shock, slapping both his palms to his cheeks like the boy in that Christmas movie her parents always loved so much. 

“Oh no,” he said, “did I get the wrong girl? Are you not Celia Villareal?”

She tried to shake her head as vigorously as she could. Maybe she could still get out of this. 

“Oh wait,” he continued, removing a black object from his pocket. “I’ve got your phone, not to mention your purse and driver’s license.”

He pressed the outside edge of the phone and it activated, revealing a picture of Celia and her sister from a visit the month before. She watched as the man stared at the picture, a cloud of unadulterated hatred passing over his face. 

He bent down so that his face was close to hers. She could feel his breath now and felt her pulse quicken a little more. 

“No, Celia. It’s you. I know it’s you,” he sighed. “You see I’ve been following you for a long time.” He caressed the top of her forehead and she winced. 

“Oh, don’t worry, dear. This isn’t that kind of thing. You’re not my type. No, I’ve been watching you because you are part of something bigger now. I don’t expect you to understand. You see, all the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely players.”

He stood up again. 

“And your part just got a lot more important, though you probably didn’t know it. Your life was definitely a comedy. Taming of the Shrew I’d guess. You would make a perfect Bianca. So sweet. So lovely.”

He turned and grabbed the edge of whatever he had been dragging behind him and pulled it closer. 

Celia could see it now. It looked like one of those things they have in hospitals for people who need fluid. What’s it called? An IV drip? 

“You know, now that I think about it, Taming of the Shrew is perfect. You have to suffer because of your sister. It’s not your fault really. And I do feel bad about that. But, as I said, we’re all just playing parts. And, sadly, this comedy is about to become very much a tragedy.”

To Celia’s horror, as he was saying this the man took a large needle out of a case. He attached the needle to the end of the IV drip and then started to apply some kind of topical solution to her forearm. 

Celia jerked as hard as she could. She thrashed her head back and forth. But, nothing. It did nothing. She was tied too securely for any of it to do any good. 

“Just a little poke,” he said, as he jabbed the needle into her vein and secured it with a piece of medical tape. 

It hurt. Celia felt her heart pounding. What was in the bag? What was attached to her? Oh, she wanted to go home so badly. 

“Now,” he said, straightening up and rubbing disinfectant on his hands. “I suppose you should know the rules. This is going to be disappointing to you, but you are almost certainly going to die.”

Celia tried to cry out again, but could not. She pressed her eyes shut as tight as she could, forcing more tears out and down her cheeks.

“But, not for ABSOLUTE certain.”

She opened her eyes again.

“Your sister is going to have the chance to save you. But, to do that she has to prove she is smarter than me, which, sorry to say, she isn’t. You see we started this little game a few years ago and we simply must finish it.”

Celia felt a wave of relief. Her sister was the smartest person she knew. She was a full professor at an Ivy League university. She would come to her. Celia was sure of it. 

“Now,” the man said, “ultimately she’ll have a day or so.” 

He paused and gestured to the clear bag. “You see, that IV bag is full of a solution. A solution that will kill you if it hits its saturation point, which it won’t for a bit yet. Forty-two hours to be exact. So big sis will have forty-two hours, give or take. Actually quite a lot of TAKE because I have to be far from here when I send the message. But, don’t worry, I’ve accounted for that in the game. You’ll see, it’s quite fair really. If she solves the puzzle in time then you have nothing at all to worry about. If not, which, again, is likely, then I’d make my peace now.” 

Celia closed her eyes. God, she’d be anywhere but here right now. Anywhere but here. 

“But, listen to me,” he said laughing, “here I am wasting time. First things first, we have to record a little video for big sis and send it to her. Now, where is that phone.”

He tapped his pockets in an exaggerated fashion like someone who was playing charades and trying to get the other players to guess “lost.” 

“Ah, here it is,” he removed the phone from the pocket he had just put it in. “Now, just need to open it.”

He pressed the fingerprint button on the phone to Celia’s outstretched, bound hand. The phone blinked on and opened. 

“Great! Now, of course, it’s on airplane mode right now, wouldn’t want any fancy detectives doing any cell phone tower work and spoiling all the fun, would we?”

He smiled and her blood turned colder somehow. 

“So, ready? All smiles now!”

Download it on Amazon HERE