WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition Read Online Free Page A

time, Molly’s face was as white as
the snow, and I truly feared she was about to faint. She couldn’t
even speak anymore. Instead, she just stood there frozen, holding
her gloved hands to her face. I noticed her fingers began to
tremble and tears were now cascading down her cheeks.
    “What is it, Molly?” Nicky asked, wrapping
her in his arms.
    Without a single word, she pointed to the
chicken house.
    Nicky looked at me then asked me to stay with
Molly while he headed in the direction she was pointing.
    He was only gone a moment.
    When he came back out of the old and
rickety-looking wooden shack-like building, he didn’t have the same
bright color on his cheeks he’d had on the way in.
    “What is it? What’s wrong in there?” I
asked.
    “Let’s just say you’re no longer stuck with
just a schmuck on Cupid’s Big Day. Try being stuck with a stiff
too.”
    “A stiff? As in a dead body?” I asked, well
aware of what the term meant. After all, I’d been a crime thriller
editor for over a decade now.
    “Not just any stiff either,” Nicky said as he
approached me and Molly.
    “What do you mean? You know the vic?” I
asked.
    “So do you.”
    “I do?”
    “It’s Jack Collins.”
    I gasped, taking in way too much of the
frigid cold air, and immediately began choking. I doubled over,
unable to regain composure.
    Nicky shielded me with his body from the icy
blasts of wind that just wouldn’t stop and began to rub my
back.
    “You okay, Allwitch?”
    “No. Not really,” I managed to get out
between damn near hyperventilating breaths.
    “Yeah. Me either. This doesn’t look
good.”
    “I don’t get it. Why would Jack Collins, the
Number One New York Times and Amazon Bestselling Author be here? In
northern Indiana, in a blizzard, dead in your chicken coop?”
    “Maybe because I’m Number Two on those same
bestseller lists,” Nicky said in an eerie tone just like Castle
does when beginning to spin theories for Beckett.
    “Doesn’t he live in LA?” I asked, shivering
uncontrollably, and not just from the blasts of wind damn near
knocking us over.
    “Not anymore.”
    “Yeah. I got that,” I said, sometimes still
taken aback a bit by the morbid humor of the crime thriller world.
“Do you think you’re next?”
    “No, I think whoever killed Jack wants people
to think I offed him to get to Number One.”
    “Oh. Now that’s bad. And it’s only going to
look worse when the police put together who he is and who’s farm he
was found on.”
    Nicky just nodded his head and helped me back
up the hill toward the house.
    I looked around for Molly, who I’d actually
forgotten about. She must have already gone back into the house to
call the police.
    “For the record, I’d definitely take being
stuck with a schmuck over a stiff,” I said, knowing this wasn’t the
time for more morbid humor, but really not knowing what else to
say.
    “I hear yeah, Partner. And thanks. But
evidently, you’re not the only one who thinks I’m a schmuck.”
     
    THE END…
WELL…NOT REALLY…
To Be Continued in The Samantha Aldredge Chronicles #1
STUCK WITH A STIFF…coming in Spring 2012.
     
    NOTE FROM D. D. SCOTT
     
    Welcome to my new Samantha Aldredge
Chronicles!
     
    For all you superfab Castle fans out
there…
     
    The Samantha Aldredge Chronicles are –
    Castle gone-country
     
    This Spring, the first full-length Samantha
Aldredge Chronicle – STUCK WITH A STIFF – will release, where y’all
will find out how that body got in Nicky Blaine’s chicken coop as
well as who dumped it there to frame Nicky.
     
    In the mean time, I’ve also got another
super-sonic thrill-ride of a Cozy Cash Mystery for you to enjoy –
CARATS AND COCONUTS – featuring Samantha’s cousin Zoey Witherspoon
and her for-real prince-of-a-mate Roman Bellesconi.
     
    And in case you’re brand new to my
Bootscootin’, Cozy Cash and Samantha Aldredge Mystery Worlds, start with my Bestselling Boxed
Set , which includes my first 6 books for