Title: Run
Author: Becky Johnson
Publisher: Becky Johnson
Pages: 160
Genre: Mystery Suspense
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Purchase at AMAZON
A
decades old mystery and a deadly game of cat and mouse will change Charlotte
Marshall forever.
Charlotte has a good life: friends, family, a successful career. Her perfect
life is destroyed when research for a book and a connection from her past
plunges her into the middle of her worst nightmare.
On the run, with no one to trust, Charlotte begins to unravel the work of a
sadistic murderer. Afraid and alone, she will learn the meaning of trust and
just when to run.
Book Excerpt:
It’s ironic really, the chain of events that led me here,
kneeling in the dirt with a gun to my head.
My tale of woe, if I can be so bold as to call it that,
started innocently enough. It started with spelling words and dinner.
1992
As a student I was smart but a horrible speller.
(Dyslexia will do that to you.) In order to get me through my spelling test
every week, my mother, who naturally was a school teacher, worked with me every
night on my spelling words. While I sat at the table working on my spelling,
she watched the news and made dinner. It would not be an understatement to say
it was the least favorite part of my day. I would sit at the kitchen table
wanting to be outside or really just about anywhere else, and write out my
words for the week ten times each, then in a sentence, then test myself with
flashcards.
Certain, certain, certain. I am certain I do not want to be doing this.
However, however, however. However, I don’t
have a choice…
“Earlier today, police in Cherry Hill responded to a call
from local kids at the park…”
Balance, balance, balance. What sentence could I use for balance…? The seal
balanced a ball on his nose. Stupid but it would work.
“…the body of an unidentified female adolescent was
discovered…”
My attention was caught. Spelling words forgotten.
“…sources say the victim was raped and tortured before
she was murdered. Her body was mutilated. Police are asking that anyone…”
What? The words of the newscaster left me feeling
unsettled. I knew something bad had happened; for the first time, the world was
scary. I knew enough to put that together, but the why left me shaken. Why
would someone kill a girl?
“I don’t get it, Mom, what happened?”
Once my mom realized I was talking about the news, the TV
was turned off and I was redirected back to my spelling words. I bent back over
my spelling words while my mind whirled. I knew there was something different
about this story. The unknown girl stuck in my head.
Title: Stand
Author: Becky Johnson
Publisher: Becky Johnson
Pages: 160
Genre: Mystery Suspense
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Purchase at AMAZON
Nine months ago Charlotte
Marshall survived a nightmare when she was hunted by a sadistic killer. Now
routine, ritual, and a vigorous self-defense schedule barely keep the fear at
bay.
Desperate to move on Charlotte
finds hope in volunteering with FindMe, an organization dedicated to finding
missing people and helping their families. Her first case ends up being more
than she bargained for, and she soon learns that a little hope can be a
dangerous thing.
While Charlotte
unravels a mystery, an old enemy circles waiting for just the right moment to
strike. Charlotte
will have to choose to stand and fight, or to give in to the fear that waits
for her.
Book Excerpt:
My own scream woke me.
Zero to sixty in less than a second. One second I was
sound asleep, and the next I was bolt upright in bed with the sound of my
scream still echoing across the bedroom. My heart thundered in my chest, and my
panting breaths sounded loud in the silence. My shaking hands gripped the
blanket in tight fists. Kitty looked up at me from her cozy spot at the end of
the bed. Yellow eyes blinked. Then she meowed in sympathy and dropped her
calico head back down onto her paws. She used to love sleeping curled right up
against me. But my regular nightmares disrupted her. Unfortunately nightmares
are not an uncommon occurrence. I have suffered from them ever since Lawrence
Pheares.
Nine months ago I faced a monster, a murderer responsible
for the deaths of twenty-three innocent girls. At night he haunts me. Sometimes
the dreams are a reenactment of the events. I see Pheares choking me. Or I
remember Jack and Pheares fighting. Sometimes the nightmares are filled with
images of my lost girls. I watch helpless as Emily runs from a mad man. I
cannot save her. The worst ones though, the dreams that make it impossible for
me to go back to sleep, are the ones like the nightmare I just woke up from.
They leave me with a jumble of images and tangled feelings. Nothing concrete
that makes sense. When I wake up screaming, I am overwhelmed with terror.
That’s the only feeling or sense I get from these dreams, bone deep fear.
According to my therapist I am suffering from PTSD.
Simple letters for a life that is changed by trauma. Nine months ago I had
lived the nightmare. It all began so simply. I was doing research for my next
novel when I stumbled onto a serial killer and twenty-three girls who were
abducted, raped, tortured, murdered, and then thrown away. When I found the
killer, he found me. I almost didn’t survive. In the end I beat Lawrence
Pheares, but in doing so I was forever changed.
Without conscious thought, my hand reached over to cover
the E tattooed on the inside of my right arm, a daily reminder of what I had
survived and a tribute to those innocent girls who did not.
In the months since I discovered evidence of a serial
killer and my life became entwined with those lost girls who were heartlessly
killed by a madman, I had become a different person, scared of my own shadow.
At first it wasn’t so bad. I was still cruising on adrenaline. Now every day is
a battle.
When I let myself really think about it, thoughts of
Georgia frighten me the most. I never learned from Pheares what role she played
in the killings, but I knew in my heart that she had one. Pheares was dead. But
I knew Georgia was still out there. There was no evidence of this, but my gut
told me different. I knew she was alive. I could feel her watching me.
I looked over at my bedside clock. It was four
forty-three in the morning. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep.
My body was slick with sweat and the hands I ran over my face shook. Max, my
black Pit Bull mix, looked at me from his spot beside my bed. His ears were
perked. Brown eyes focused on me. He looked ready to get up with me or go back
to sleep, depending on my next move. These days Max rarely leaves my side. He
is a good friend.
I swung my legs over and sat on the edge of the bed. A
few deep breaths later my heart was no longer racing, and I was ready to get
up.
I start every morning with yoga. It is one of my
therapies. Sometimes I think if I don’t do the little things like yoga,
running, and journaling, I will plunge into a well of terror that will dominate
me. So every morning, no matter what, I make myself stick to my routine, as
though that alone will save me. That morning my poses were a little shaky from
my nightmare, but I made it through them. Mountain pose. Forward bend. Down
dog. I could feel myself steadying. Warrior two. Down dog. Tree pose. I
finished with two sun salutations then stood in mountain pose just breathing.
Max knows my new pattern. When my routine was finished he
was ready to go. He leaned his big body against me and gave that look dog
owners everywhere know – outside please.
I will admit I am afraid of becoming agoraphobic. It
would be so easy. But I make myself go outside. If I didn’t, I think I could
live a very content and safe life, never leaving the safety of my home. But
that would mean that Pheares won. I can’t let him win. So, every day I force myself
to venture outdoors. I stand outside and consider it a small victory in the
midst of many battles. Max helps.
I grabbed Max’s leash from the hall closet and layered on
warm winter gear. Coat, gloves, hat, boots. December in New Jersey is cold. It
was so early that it was dark outside and very still. It had already been a
rough icy winter. There were several inches of snow on the ground. I paused at
my front door, Max waited patiently on his leash beside me. A few deep breaths,
and I was able to convince myself to open the door.
My last home burned down, part of the drama I endured
nine months ago with Pheares. He burned my home and destroyed everything I
owned. He took so much from me, but at the end I was still standing. After a
brief stay in a temporary condo, courtesy of my agent, my new home is
comfortably located in a quiet development with lots of space between the
houses and a big fenced backyard for Max. The small two story home has a nice
open floor plan downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. It backs up to trees and
a lake, so it is quiet.
It feels like too much quiet sometimes, but I like it.
The only nice thing about taking Max outside in the
winter is that he is as happy to move quickly and get back inside as I am. He
is not a fan of the cold. My breath left cold puffs of fog in the air and I
shifted in place to stay warm. It was eerily quiet out, still too early for
most of the world to be stirring. As I waited for Max to finish his business,
headlights flashed over my front door. A car turned the corner onto my street.
I tensed. As it rolled closer I recognized the logo of the security company
hired to patrol my neighborhood. It was one of things that attracted me to this
development. I was looking for a sense of security, wanting to feel safe. It
hasn’t worked, but I gave the security car a wave as it slowly moved past my
house. Looks like Carl. I had made a point to know every guard that patrolled.
I know everyone who is a help or a possible threat in my fragile world.
Max finished his business, shivered from the chilly air,
and whined to go back inside. We ran toward the door. After the cold the first
wave of warmth was almost too much. I didn’t really relax until I heard the
locks click. I was glad to be out of the cold and the dark. I always breathe a
little easier when I am safely locked inside my home.
I striped off all the winter gear I had piled on and put
them back in their respective places in the hall closet.
After a shower to wash away the sweat from my nightmare
and yoga, and then a bowl of Cheerios, I felt almost ready to face the day.
I stood facing the mirror wearing a pair of yoga pants
and a sports bra, my other daily ritual. I took stock of my body and its
changes. Same long light blonde hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail, same
dark blue eyes and overbite. The differences from nine months ago are obvious.
I’ve lost over twenty-five pounds. Anything less than a hundred and twenty on
my frame is too skinny. I was too skinny. The dark circles under my eyes were
almost permanent. The biggest change though is my eyes. I used to be innocent,
innocent to murder and cruelty. I’m not anymore. My eyes now are old. The
changes were obvious. However, they were not all negative. I was strong. My
arms had muscles they never had before. I was tough, inside and out. Looking at
my reflection I repeated the same positive mantra I said every morning. You
are strong. You are a survivor. Then I finished getting dressed and drove
into Philly.
About the Author
Books are Becky Johnson’s
passion and always have been. She used to get in trouble in school for reading
during class!
Becky has Master’s degrees
in social work and history, and for her day job she is a social worker. In her
writing she tries to answer a question that is important to both social work
and history: Why? She always wants to
know why people do the things they do or feel the way they feel.
When not reading or writing
she enjoys yoga, cooking, and makes a pretty mean chili!
Her latest books of the
Charlotte Marshall Mysteries series are Run
and Stand.
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