We'll Never Tell, the first book in my Secrets of Ravenswood trilogy, is free today through Wednesday on Amazon! I hope you'll download this story of love and murder... Just click here.
The book begins with three young girls witnessing a murder...and continues when the body turns up seventeen years later. Here's the opening excerpt. Happy reading!
“My
mom will kill me if she finds out
about this, Sam. Camping in a graveyard is just asking for trouble.”
Samantha
Beaumont ducked beneath the low limb of a fir tree before glancing over her
shoulder at her friend. Moonlight filtered through the forest, casting shadows
across the tense set of Darby Kincade’s shoulders.
“Your
mom won’t know if you don’t tell her. And, hey, if she does kill you, at least
you’ll be in the right place.”
“Ha,
ha, you’re a riot.”
“How
come you’re so grumpy? Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“Who
cares about ghosts? I’m more afraid we’ll get eaten by a bear.” Juliette Shaw’s
voice quavered, and she edged closer to Sam. “They won’t even know where to
look for our bodies.”
“Don’t
be a chicken. Bears are more scared of us than we are of them.”
“Doubtful,
seriously doubtful,” Darby said and slapped at a mosquito.
Sam
rolled her eyes and plunged through the thimbleberry bushes. They’d lost the
trail a half mile back, but she knew where she was going. The abandoned
graveyard—if you could call a handful of toppled headstones a graveyard—was
directly below Prophet Point. Even at night, the peak was visible, a dark
shadow looming over the town of Ravenswood, nestled high in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains.
“We
could have simply camped in your backyard if you’re so in love with the idea of
sleeping with bugs,” Juliette said. “You didn’t have to drag us all the way up
here.”
“Where’s
the fun in that? Summer’s been a major bore since school let out. Anyway, Wyatt
dared me.”
Darby
stopped walking and fisted her hands on her hips. “I should have known there
was a reason for this. Your brother’s an idiot.”
“Yep,
a complete moron, but you have to admit this is more exciting than a sleepover
at one of our houses.” Sam hesitated at a thick stand of pine trees. Maybe they
needed to head a little more to the north.
“If
you call getting eaten by mosquitoes fun.” Juliette waved her hands in front of
her face.
“I
have repellent in my backpack.”
“Can
we put some on? I don’t want to get covered in bites.”
Sam
slid the pack off her shoulders. It hit the ground with a thump. “Good idea. We
should have sprayed down before we left the house.”
“What
was that?” Darby asked in loud whisper.
Sam’s
head snapped up, and her hand clenched around the can of bug repellent. “I
didn’t hear anything.”
“Shhh,
it sounded like voices.”
“I
bet it’s Wyatt, trying to scare us,” Juliette whispered.
“Well,
it’s working,” Darby whispered back.
A
female voice echoed through the night, speaking rapidly like the tinny squawk
of a blue jay, rising in pitch. A lower voice answered, more controlled, but
something about it sent a shiver down Sam’s spine.
