Sample Chapters

Chapter One: Emerald/Summer, 1988

At the age of 35, Emerald Brent was satisfied with her life. After ten years of marriage she was still very much in love with her husband, Terry, as he was with her. Thanks to Terry's classified job as a technician for the government on Mare Island Naval Base, and Emerald's own job as a copywriter for Santa Rosa's only large advertising agency, they were able to remodel their little house until it was no longer recognizable as the delapidated bargain they had squeezed out a down payment for ten years earlier. There were a couple of years at the beginning when Emerald hadn't been certain the mortgage would be paid. They'd made it, though; and now there were only two things Emerald would have asked for. The baby she had already named Elizabeth, and for Lesley to return from New York.

Melody's Journal: Remembering California

September, 1988

Yesterday was Aurora's funeral, and I tried to remember just when I first met her, but I couldn't do it. One day, in 1984, I think, she was just there, in my life, like a favorite toy or a vase someone gave me as a gift -- but it would be hard to conceive of someone who would give Aurora Lawson as a gift.

Chapter One: Summer, 1976

He stared into the scotch. He wondered why it was so fascinating. It wavered, and shimmered in the glass, and seemed to envelope him. Perhaps he could enter it, drown in it, become part of its' world. He shook his head, and threw the shot down his throat.

His beard was growing. It was in the itchy stage. Before he returned home, he'd have to shave. But he didn't care what he looked like, what he wore, did or thought. And going home was too scary to contemplate. Where was home, by the way? He'd forgotten.

Chapter Seventeen: You Call This a Plan?

"All I'm saying is, if you go over to the other side, be prepared. Every portal is guarded; the one in Porterville is apparently the main one, but they all have armed men on the other side. With weapons." Nathaniel drained his wine glass. "Fabulous food you have in this world. I think I'd like to stay."

Chapter Eleven: No Way Out

Charles Brent led the way along a path that seemed, to Robin, to weave in and out of shadows that revealed stranger and stranger glimpses of worlds he couldn't reach. "Hold it," he finally said. "Why am I seeing all these people and places that aren't really there?"

His guide seemed to be considering this. "Well, I can't see them myself. It must be because you're still alive." "But what are they?"

"I think they must be different places and times in history. Somewhere along this path is your world, the one I pulled you out of."

Chapter Ten

This was gonna be a piece o' cake, Max thought, wishing he hadn't hired T'see Chow after all. The master thief hadn't done anything thusfar except provide Kent to disable the alarm system -- and that looked so easy, Max was pretty sure he could've done it himself. "What're you doing?" He whispered to T'see -- "grab it, already!"

"Not so fast, my impatient friend." T'see removed what looked like a small flashlight from his shoulder bag. He and Kent both had one -- Kent's contained the lockpick set; Max wasn't sure what else. But when T'see shone the light, it revealed a web of lightbeams around the bust. "There are lasers protecting each piece. The controls are probably in the room somewhere, and the entire room isn't wired -- too expensive. Kent, see what you can find."

"But we disabled the alarm system."

CHAPTER FOUR

LAURA - February, 1967

I was alone in the gym. The music for the ballroom scene of Romeo and Juliet was playing on the dance club's stereo. In pink tights and a pink leotard fashioned like a Grecian tunic, I watched myself in the mirror that covered one wall of the rehearsal hall -- watching for any sign of a flaw. My pink satin slipper flashed up in extension, back in an arabesque. A half turn, a diagonal run, a full stag leap. A full turn, another run, a bent stag leap. Every move without hesitation or error. I walked to the bar for a series of plie´s. I wondered if Allan would be nervous dancing in front of my friends. He shouldn't, I decided -- the Dance Committee would be there also.

The Story
Two rock journalists, Hollis Danby and Elizabeth Anderson, have an assignment to interview the few surviving `rock dinosaurs' for their magazine, Off the Wall. One of them, Elizabeth, had a brief love affair with superstar David Blakely many years before, and he is on their list of interviews.

David has no recollection of their love affair, but many of his memories from that period are hazy. He is haunted by an image of a woman drowning in a large pool of water, quickly followed by the image of the very young Elizabeth.

Chapter Eight: The Ways of Fate

Pal watched the crowd milling around the entrance to the faire. They had just opened the gates, and it looked as if there were already twice as many people out there as there'd been on Sunday. Labor Day Monday was notorious amongst faire workers as the toughest day of the season, and he could see why. Part of it was because the performers gave away free passes to all their friends, and those passes were only good the first weekend. Monday being a holiday, it was natural all those people with responsibilities or plans for the remainder of the weekend would take advantage of the day and their passes.

Detective Mark Hanson was reading the latest copy of Conspiracy magazine. He was scheduled for lunch with his friend Rob, and wanted to be up on whatever strange things he might have published that month, but he wasn't prepared for Rob's interpretation of the campus murders in the blurb he'd agreed to write. Mark couldn't believe he was actually stringing the two at Sonoma State together with those at campuses all over the country.

He laid the magazine down for a moment, and considered the material he had read about the various murders. It was impossible that the crimes had been committed by one person, but Rob wasn't suggesting that. He was fond of a conspiracy theory; while the police had, up until this time, been treating the first murder as the work of someone who hated the female professor or wanted to get rid of his girlfriend. That theory had been shot down by the second murder, and Mark knew it was just a matter of time until the F.B.I. arrived in Santa Rosa. He wished he had more information for them.