Bonus Content!

Writing and a split pea soup snack (and yes, I know it's dangerous to combine soup and a keyboard, but there were no accidents.)

Just like films, there's a lot of content that ends up on the cutting room floor when editing a manuscript. It may be because the wonderful words created in the first series of drafts don't fit with the final version, or simply because the editor wants to cut the length of the book. Whatever the reason, there they are -- sad pages without a home.

That's what happened to the original first chapter of The Aquamarine Necklace. It was the perfect prologue to the first Janice Maidstone Mystery. I spent hours working on the mood, pacing, and tension.

Then, it got cut.

But here's your chance to see it. Let me know what you think. Would you have liked to see it in the published book, or was it the right decision to leave it out?

The Aquamarine Necklace: PROLOGUE...

My sensitive hands knead the knots beneath her smooth skin. When my fingers dig deeply into tight trapezoids, she moans with orgasmic pleasure. Wisps of her blonde hair wave in the breeze of her slow exhalations.

She is relaxed to the point of near stupor. Her head lolls to the side, granting me a clear view of her flawless, make-up free complexion. My anticipation intensifies, and a tingling sensation spreads from my belly to my groin. When I can wait no longer, I pull the syringe from my pocket and sink the short, fine needle into soft flesh. She barely flinches, even as I sigh with satisfaction.

Now, I wait patiently. Her deep, regular breaths become ragged and she murmurs she doesn’t feel well. I kneel in front of her, showing concern, and make a show of pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I will call for an ambulance.”

As expected, her eyes roll back until only the whites show. There is no more need to fake concern, so I return the phone to my pocket.

When she begins to convulse, I place a cushion against her chest and lean on it to keep her from falling off the chesterfield. Her slipper-clad feet beat a frantic tattoo on the area carpet and seizures contort her face. Tortured groans force sprays of saliva between clenched teeth. Soon, too, I am grunting with the effort of controlling the thrashing. In those moments, I smell sweet, innocent perfume and think it incongruous to her former life as a common stripper.

Gradually, her muscles soften and fall slack. I gently wipe the drool from her chin, listening as her breathing labours, slows and finally ceases.

I dispose of the syringe and tissue used to wipe her chin, scour surfaces I may have touched, and take a careful survey of the condo before returning to the body. In a last moment with her, I lift a lock of her soft-as-silk hair and let it run, like water over river rock, through my fingers.

I gaze down, take something to remember my time with her, then let myself out into the night.