Murder For By Dummies OUT NOW!

Yee Haw!

It’s finally here!!!  Book One in the new Marilyn Club Series, Murder For By Dummies, has been released and is available NOW for download at all major online retail outlets.  So be sure you click on the link below to your favorite retailer, and order your copy today.

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And just to whet your whistle, here is a new excerpt from Murder For By Dummies…ENJOY!

Murder For By Dummies

By Kayce Lassiter

Emily Redfeather

It was tricky finding my way in the dark, but I did find the locker, and it was accessible, with only my lock on the door.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I opened it and rummaged through the camping gear, looking first for the flashlight I knew would be in the top box.  I found the flashlight.

Finally, something is as it should be.

With only the flashlight for illumination, I found the camping mattress and sleeping bags and dragged them back to the apartment.  As my mind began to clear, I went back for the rest of the equipment…just in case.  If I moved everything into the apartment, the landlord couldn’t lock it up.  At least I’d have a battery-operated lantern and some canned food from the camping boxes.  I wouldn’t starve or have to sit in the dark, alone with my demons.

Once I moved everything into the living room, I felt better with some familiar things around me.  I blew up the air mattress and threw a couple of sleeping bags over it in the corner of the living room.  Without electricity, there would be no heat.  I’d probably be thankful for the sleeping bags come the middle of the night.

Too numb to eat, I threw on some sweats, switched out the lantern and crawled between the sleeping bags.  Exhausted and emotionally empty, I turned on my side and stared into the darkness as my mind recalled a long-forgotten memory of Aunt Bea standing in the kitchen, baking cookies in her long black and white apron with the cow’s udder on the front.

I smiled at the precious image and closed my eyes.  A single tear snaked its way down my cheek as I gratefully surrendered to the sleep I so badly needed.

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Love,

Kayce

Murder By Dummies Available NOW For Early Download!

Woo Hoo! 

Go get it! Book One in the new Marilyn Club Series, Murder For By Dummies, is available right this very moment for early download!!!

Place your pre-order at the Totally Bound website and download your copy TODAY.  If you have already placed your pre-order, your copy is available NOW!

  

CLICK HERE TO ORDER!

***** WINNER OF THE AFFAIRE DE COEUR COVER ART CONTEST *****

So, go…don’t delay…hurry…order your copy of Murder For By Dummies now and get the download today--almost a month before everyone else on the general release date of August 15, 2017.

And just to whet your whistle, here is a new excerpt…ENJOY!

Murder For By Dummies

By Kayce Lassiter

Emily Redfeather

The office door swung open and slammed against the wall.   I jumped an inch off the chair and almost toppled backward, chair and all.  With both my feet straight out in front of me, and arms wind-milling, I struggled to save myself.  As I barely avoided a very humiliating upset by regaining my balance, I stared hard at my boss, waiting for an explanation.

“Could you come to my office?  I need to talk to you.”  He wouldn’t make eye contact.

Not a good sign.

I took a deep, measured breath and mentally counted to ten as he hurried from my office.  Annoyed, I dragged my poor, tired body across the hall and into his office, and slumped into the first chair I came to.

“Is this going to take long?”  I was too frayed to hide my annoyance.

He raised his brows.  “It might.  Are you in a hurry?”

“Sort of.  It’s Friday afternoon and I’ve got almost eighty hours in this week.  I’m exhausted and there’s a family emergency brewing.  I just want to go home and curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and pray for good news.  Can it wait?”

George stared at some loose papers on his desk, still not making eye contact—which wasn’t unusual.  He was a short, bald man with absolutely no people skills and beady little eyes that were always sneaking peeks like he expected to catch someone doing something wrong.

“Uh, no.  This can’t wait, and I’m afraid you’re not going home early.  We’re downsizing and you’re being RIF’d.”

The clock on the wall slowly ticked away the seconds as the silence hung thick in the air between us.  After a few moments, the wheels began to slowly turn in my mind.

“RIF’d?  What do you mean, RIF’d?”

“A Reduction In Force—job cuts.”

I stared at him as my heart began to pound.  “I know what it means.  Why me?”

“Like I said, the company is downsizing.  Your department is being outsourced.  Your project is cancelled.  We’re sending the work offshore.”  Before I could respond, he hurried on.  “Don’t worry.  You’ll be compensated.  We’ll give you a severance package and help you update your resume.”

“Severance package?  Help me update my resume?”  My voice pitched higher as I slid closer to the edge.  “Do you know what I’m dealing with right now?”

Sarcasm coated his words.  “I’m sorry if this comes at a bad time.”  He rolled his eyes and sighed.  It’s nothing personal, just a cost saving measure.”

Wow.  That was heartfelt.

My stomach knotted tighter as I felt my foot slip over the mental edge.  “Nothing personal?  Are you kidding me?  This is my freaking job.  It’s pretty damn personal to me.  I’ve given this company two hundred percent for the last four years and this is the thanks I get?”

RIFs happened and they weren’t always selective, but some part of me always believed if I worked hard and did a good job, I’d be rewarded.  I never expected to give so much of myself to my career, only to get kicked in the teeth.

Unreasonable rage bubbled up from somewhere deep inside and I began to shout.  “You think a few lousy months’ pay and some re-training will compensate for having this prestigious career of facilitating the movement of garbage ripped out from under me?”

On a roll now, my propensity for sarcasm kicked into high gear as I leaned forward in my seat.

“You think that’ll even begin to compensate me for being thrown out of my corner cubicle and being barred from the county dump?  For the humiliation of being supervised as I pack my personal belongings into the one box I’m allowed to carry out?  For the loss of my insurance and the huge pension I was counting on when I’m old and shriveled?  You think you can come up with enough compensation for all that?”

He stammered, apparently at a loss for the right words, “Actually, it’s only two weeks’ pay, and no training.  But there are outplacement services.”

“Two weeks’ pay?  That’s it?”  Hanging off the edge of sanity by my fingernails, I surged to my feet and stormed to the door.  I jerked it open, stepped through, and turned to glare at him.  “Outplacement services?”

Heads popped up all over the groundhog farm as everyone struggled to see and hear everything.

“You’ve got to be kidding.  You’re offering me outplacement services?  After four years of weekends, late nights, working overtime until I couldn’t see straight, you tell me outplacement services and two weeks’ severance is all I get?  Are you freaking nuts?  Well, you can kiss my outplacement services!”

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Love,

Kayce

Murder By Dummies Available NOW For Pre-Order!

Ya Hoo! 

Shouting it from the rooftops…Book One in the new Marilyn Club Series, Murder For By Dummies, is available for pre-order NOW!!!

Yes, that means right now…at this very moment.  So be sure you follow this link and order your copy TODAY from the Totally Bound website.

CLICK HERE TO 

PRE-ORDER!

Anyone who orders a copy of Murder For By Dummies during this pre-order period will be able to do an early download on July 18, 2017.  So, go…don’t delay…HURRY…order your copy now and get the download before everyone else when it goes live for general ordering at all major online retail outlets on August 15, 2017.

AND...Don't forget to VOTE for this cover in the Affaire de Coeur annual cover art contest.  You can vote once each day between now and 7/15.  So go vote now, and then come back and check out the excerpt below…ENJOY!

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Murder For By Dummies

Kayce Lassiter

Emily Redfeather

“Dead?  What do you mean she’s dead?  I just got a letter from her a week ago.  How can she be dead?”

“Maybe she wrote the letter before she died.”

“Ya think?”

 “Yep, she was probably still alive when she wrote it.”

“Probably?”  I groaned as a headache started to thump at the base of my brain.

This is going nowhere.

My dad didn’t always make sense on a good day.  The fact that he thought his sister was dead wouldn’t make this one of his good days.

Am I really having this conversation?

I mentally groaned.  And from the office, no less.  Freaking painful, but I’d get further if I just went along.

“Okay, Norman,” I needed to roll with the flow, “how did she die, and where is she?”

“I don’t rightly know how she died, Emily.  She’s just dead.”

“Where is she?”  I shouldn’t be short with my dad, but he could be so trying at times like this.  Communication wasn’t his strong suit.

Hell, he doesn’t even have a strong suit since the accident.

When he didn’t answer, I went back in for another shot.  “Daddy, where is Aunt Beatrice?”

My father, for some unknown reason, always said he preferred it when I called him Norman.  But through the years, I’d found “Daddy” worked best when I needed him to focus on what I was saying.  I’d long suspected it was the name he secretly treasured, so I saved it like an ace-in-the-hole for when I really needed it, despite his protests.

Dad hesitated before replying, “Aunt Beatrice?”

I closed my eyes to keep from screaming.

Go easy.  He’s walking a thin line here.

The quiver in his voice was a sure sign he wasn’t as steady as he tried to make me believe. 

My father had been an insurance salesman for many years, but retired when he sustained a serious head injury in a car accident the summer after I moved to Tucson.  For the most part, he functioned okay and got along well in the small town he lived in, but often drifted into a fantasy world where he claimed to be an ex-DEA agent.  Everyone in town knew of his injury and loved him, so they went along with his fantasies and sometimes humored him more than they should.

His best friend these days was a chimpanzee named Chaz. Someone had dropped the creature off at the farm well before dad’s accident.  He’d taken to the creature immediately, but now delighted in telling everyone Chaz used to be his partner in the DEA.

I took a deep breath to calm myself and tried again, “Daddy, tell me where Aunt Beatrice is.”

“She’s right here, sitting in her rocking chair.”

“In her rocking chair?”  My mind reeled as I skimmed through all the possibilities.  “Are you sure Aunt Beatrice is dead?”

Aunt Beatrice was my father’s sister and he lived with her on the family farm where they grew up.  My mom died of lung cancer shortly before my fifth birthday, so Dad and Aunt Bea raised me, along with half the children in town.  They were always taking in strays, whether they had two legs or four.

Sounding like a man discussing the weather, he nonchalantly replied, “She’s dead all right.  I’ve seen dead before and she’s definitely dead.”

“Where’s Beau?”

“Beau?”

“Yes, Daddy.  You remember Beau—your son.  Where is he?”

“Oh, Beau.  He stayed at his girlfriend’s house last night.”

“Great.”

Fine time for my brother to find a girlfriend.

I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had to ask, “Daddy, how long has Aunt Beatrice been sitting in her rocker…dead?”

“Let’s see.  She was there yesterday, but I don’t think she was dead.  No, I remember she was crocheting, and we talked a bit.  So, she must’ve been alive yesterday, or was it the day before?  Hmmm.  No, I think it was yesterday.  Yes, definitely yesterday.  She must’ve died today then…I think…maybe.”

Holy crap.  Really?

Could this be any weirder?

Frustration and panic had me by the throat as my stomach clenched.  Suddenly, I had an epiphany and decided to come at it from another direction.  “Daddy, think hard.  Is Aunt Beatrice wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday when she was crocheting?”

The silence stretched on forever.  Finally, I prodded, “Do you remember what Aunt Beatrice wore yesterday?   Pants?  Overalls?  A skirt?  Can you remember?  Is she wearing the same clothes?”

“That’s a lot of questions, Lumpy.”  His voice was agitated.  “I can’t answer all those at once and I can’t think with you poppin’ off questions like they wuz bullets from a machine gun.  Which one do you want me to answer?”

I groaned at the reminder of the nickname he’d pinned on me in puberty, about the time I got my first bra.  Only two people in the world ever called me Lumpy—my dad and my best childhood buddy, Hawk.  Dad got away with it because he couldn’t remember I hated it.  Hawk got away with it because I couldn’t stop him.

I pinched my lip with my fingers to keep from snapping.  No way would I get a straight story from him.  He was too confused today.  “Okay, Daddy.  Don’t worry.  I’m gonna call Dal and have him come check on you and Aunt Beatrice.  You stay in the house and I’ll have him come out right away.  You understand?”

His voice softened.  “Sure, honey.  Don’t worry.   I’ll take care of Aunt Bea.”  Then, as if someone flipped a switch, he brightened.  “You give us a call when you get to town and Chaz and I will ride in and pick you up.  I love you.”

I pushed hard on the bridge of my nose to ease the pain collecting there.  It would take way too much time and effort to convince him I wasn’t coming home.  I prayed this was just another one of his paranoid fantasies.

“All right, Daddy, talk to you later.  I love you too.”

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Love,

Kayce