Excerpt from "Rain": Prologue

I've stalled out a bit on Snow.  I realized as I wrote (since I seem to be a total 'pantzer'--i.e. someone who writes by the seat of their pants rather than outline a story) there was more to the major subplot than I had information. So I will be off to the library and the local courthouse for research over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I will be able to keep myself from chasing red herrings. It's a risk. I could write Snow strictly as a love story but I don't think it would be the story it could be. Love comes in so many forms.

But I said in an earlier post I would publish an excerpt soon. I would publish another one from Snow but I want to finish the research first. So I have chosen an excerpt from Rain. Actually what I've chosen is the very beginning.

Prologue: August 1970

What was keeping Tom? After standing out front for a good ten minutes Gerry decided to go on up to Tom’s law office and shake him loose of whatever it was that was keeping him. Knowing his friend’s talkative tendencies it was probably just the telephone. He took the elevator to the fourth floor, strode down the long hallway then turned right. Tom’s office was the first one on the right. It had glass half walls so Julie, Tom’s secretary, saw him as soon as he turned the corner. He didn’t wait for her to greet him.

“Hey, Julie,” he said with a smile as he walked up to the door. “Think you can get that boss of yours off the telephone? He’s late.”

“Certainly, Mr. StClare,” she replied as she got up from her desk at the front and walked to the back.

Gerry didn’t bother entering completely; he just stuck his hands in his front trouser pockets and tried to keep himself from pacing. Reinhold’s office door across the hall was wide open. It looked like Horace Reinhold, the attorney across the hall from Tom, had hired someone new. That’s a contrast from the plump, silver-haired lady who used to run that office, Gerry thought. Petite, dark red shoulder length hair. She got up from her chair and walked over to the filing cabinet, her back to him. She didn’t pull out the bottom drawer, to Gerry’s disappointment, but the next drawer up. Gerry decided he liked the legs and the back view. She turned around. Hell, he liked the front view, too. All together she was . . .  captivating. Where in the hell had Reinhold found her?

“Wake up, StClare!” Someone jabbed him on the upper arm. Gerry turned his head to see Tom grinning at him. “What’s got you in a fog?”

Gerry didn’t let him finish the question. “Who’s she?”

Tom turned to look in the direction Gerry nodded and broke into a huge grin. “Oh, I see our new addition has caught your eye. Cheryl Montgomery. Reinhold sure lucked out with her.”

Gerry turned back to see if their voices had attracted her attention but apparently not; she was completely absorbed in what she was doing. Reinhold came out of the back and said something to her which made her laugh out loud. Even muffled by the distance the sound was delightful, warm and deliciously female. Damn!

“Earth to StClare,” Tom declared, breaking into the moment. “OK, let’s go over there and let me introduce you.”

Gerry drew himself back with a start and kicked himself into truly rational thought. “No,” he told Tom with a pang of regret. “I have to get on a damn plane in the morning and a hundred different things to get done before that. It will have to wait.”

“OK, then,” Tom said and started drawing him away from the doorway and toward the elevator. “If you think you can wait two weeks.”

Tom might be right, Gerry thought, taking one last look. He let Tom and a tall, blond girl enter the elevator before him. Two weeks was do-able. He punched the down button and turned to his friend.

“Cheryl Montgomery? When did she start working for Reinhold? Where did he find her?”