Tuesday Tales: From the Word COLD

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. Each week, a small group of dedicated authors share a scen from the work in progress and incorporate a word prompt into the scene. This week, the prompt is COLD. I’m working on the third book in the Protecting the Innocent series called And Justice For All. Enjoy.

Harry watched the color drain from Maggie’s cheeks. She was thinner than she’d been but every bit as beautiful and desirable. He’d tried to forget about her, tried to set aside the horrible mistake he’d made believing Marnie when she’d claimed Liam was his, but once he’d realized the truth … it hadn’t made him love his ‘son’ any less, but it had eliminated any love he’d ever had for the boy’s mother. When Liam got sick, the blood test proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the boy wasn’t his. He’d been shocked but not as badly as Marnie who didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. He’d asked for the divorce, and she’d granted it, with the condition that he keep the unknown father’s kid and give her an insane settlement. It had almost bankrupted him, but he would do anything for Liam. The child might not be his blood, but he loved him all the same.

When he’d heard that Maggie had been shot, he’d gone crazy. He’d been on the tail of these bastards for three years, had trailed them to a site called Swine Eliminators on the dark web, but was no closer to identifying them now than he’d been the day Brent had been killed. For a price, you could get rid of wild swine in your town, district or what have you, and while they’d tried to set up a sting operation, somehow, the operators of Swine Eliminators hadn’t bitten. But, as Morris had said, this wasn’t the time to reminisce.

“Over the years, several police officers have been killed in the line of duty, but the frequency has increased substantially in the last couple of years.”

“How many?” her voice trembled.

“Nine that we’re sure of, but there could be others. I’m still looking at a couple of suspicious accidents. I believe the officers killed were specifically targeted. There’s a cold-blooded killer out there hunting police officers for a price, and he has to be stopped.”

She gasped, her beautiful blue eyes going wide.

“You can’t be serious. That’s insane.”

“Maggie, you know as well as I do that misogyny, racism, homophobia, and hatred are on the rise. There are people out there who would love to turn the clock back two or three hundred years, take away women’s rights, put the gays back into the closet, and don’t get me started on religious freedom—hell, they’d probably bring back slavery if they could.”

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.