Blurb:
"First Lady Kills President Lovinggood"
December 5, 2018
Thirty years later, Hank Lovinggood embarks on a quest to prove his mother's innocence and punish the killers who took his family from him. Together Hank and lovely physicist Dr. Kathryn Sinclair confront an implacable, twisted, and merciless enemy who'll do whatever it takes to hide the truth forever.
Last Week's Excerpt:
Heart pounding, Hank took a deep breath and looked too. His father looked waxy, and his hair seemed to have faded in color, but even in death he was a handsome man. Well built too. The navy blue suit he wore couldn’t disguise those muscles in his chest. Hank saw that he really did look as much like his father as everyone said he did.
A small American flag, a pin, he guessed, was attached to the lapel of his father’s suit. His dad wore a watch thatsomehow seemed a little old-fashioned, the size or shape of it maybe.
He stared at his father for a long time. Once he had gone to a birthday party where a pony had kicked him in the stomach. He pretty much felt the same way right now. This is wrong, all wrong. Dad should be alive, not sleeping in a coffin. We should have had thousands of days together to laugh and quarrel and talk. He should be able to sit up and slap me on the back and get in his Jaguar and drive home with us.
His heart now felt as if a giant hand squeezed mercilessly around it. Why hadn’t he listened to his grandmother? He really shouldn’t have come here. Before this day he had only thought he knew about regret.
Today's Excerpt: Hank and the Senator arrive at the Sinclair Mortuary to view the remains of Hank's mother and father. Last week I forgot to put my name on www.wewriwa.blogspot.com so you may want to look at last week's excerpt before you read today's.
He sucked in another breath and turned to his mother’s coffin. Did she really deserve his regard?
She didn’t look like he thought she would. Death had treated his father kindly, but it hadn’t seemed to touch his mother at all. She looked breathtakingly beautiful with dark hair, a flawless complexion, and rosy pink lips. He had seen many pictures of her and watched every movie she had ever made, yet he still hadn’t expected her to look so beautiful. No wonder his father had loved her. No wonder her fans had idolized her.
She had a serene expression on her face, not the expression of a woman driven to murder and suicide. He looked carefully to see if he could spot the place under her jaw where the bullet had gone in, but the morticians had done a good job; the only thing he saw was a faint discoloration.
The diamond and wedding band his father had given her still graced her finger. Everyone always said how much they had loved each other, and in the few dim memories he had of them, they were always laughing and seemed happy.
Terrible to lose them both at the same time, and to think that his mother caused both deaths! No wonder he sets out to prove her innocence. How old is he in this scene?
ReplyDeleteKate, he is 33. He was 3 when his parents died.
DeleteThat next to the last paragraph. What a punch that packs! How difficult to confront this kind of pain,let alone all the doubts that have started to surface.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine having to go through all that emotion again. Though, I have a feeling he's going to discover something very soon. Great snippet!
ReplyDeleteI find myself wondering if the mother really did kill the father. There is so much excellent tension in this snippet.
ReplyDeleteMaybe not.
ReplyDelete