 FINDING
SARAH was the first novel I wrote, and it was a matter of
learning as I went along. When I finally submitted the book, it
had shrunk from 143,000 words to about 85,000. The following
scene was one that ended up on the cutting room floor, primarily
because it existed solely to keep Randy away from Sarah and add
to his tension. Scenes need more than one reason for existing,
and unless these people Randy met were going to reappear, or if
there was a clue or red herring hiding in there somewhere, it
really had no place in the book. But I liked it, so I'll share
it with you here. |
| Randy stepped on the accelerator, but
the late afternoon traffic and the winding road weren't going to
let him cover the distance back to Pine Hills fast enough to
suit him. Damn. If Sarah had given Chris any hint that she
thought he had something to do with the robbery, he'd probably
cover his tracks so completely that he'd never be caught. That
transparent face of hers. Randy had always been able to maintain a professional detachment when he worked a case, but something about Sarah made this personal. Shit. His mind had wandered again, and he slammed on the brakes at the glow of red taillights ahead of him, narrowly avoiding rear-ending a Toyota. A pickup towing a U-Haul had jackknifed, and a vast assortment of household goods lay strewn across the road, blocking traffic in both directions. Randy radioed for the highway patrol, grabbed his badge and stepped toward the distraught driver of the truck. A rangy man in faded overalls was circling the mess, first in one direction then the other, scratching his head. Randy would have laughed had he not been in such a hurry to get back to Sarah. He flashed his badge. "I'm Detective Detweiler. Looks like you have a problem, Mr—" "Quincy. Jerome Quincy. I don't know what happened, Officer. I mean, one minute, I'm driving down the road as fine as can be, and the next minute, this deer appears out of nowhere. I swerve, and wham … she just got away from me and turned over. The truck, I mean, not the deer. The deer got clean away." "Anybody else in the truck with you?" Randy asked. "Nope, only me." Honking horns permeated the air. Randy jumped up onto the overturned trailer and waved his badge. Eventually, things settled down. "All right everyone," he shouted. "I'm a police officer. Now, as I see it, we can either wait here goodness knows how long for a tow truck, or we can all pitch in and get this mess out of the way. I think we can make room for one lane of traffic to get by. I, for one, have places I need to be. What do you say?" He jumped down and picked up a rocking chair and moved it to the side of the road. Nothing happened for a minute, but one by one, people got out of their cars and picked up the assorted pieces of Quincy's life, putting pots and pans back into cartons, moving mattresses and box springs off the road. They had cleared most of the debris when a patrol car appeared. Randy stepped over and identified himself to the patrolman. "If you don't mind, I'll leave Mr. Quincy in your capable hands. I've got to get back to Pine Hills." "No problem," the officer said. He extended his hand to Mr. Quincy. "You take care, now," Randy said. "Sure thing, sir. I'm sure glad it didn't happen last week when I had a truckload of chickens." Randy choked back a laugh and walked back to his truck. He activated his flashers and gave a quick 'whoop' of his siren and squeezed out into the cleared roadway to the accompaniment of waves and honks. He remembered why he preferred the small town life. These folks would probably be exchanging Christmas cards come December. From his rear view mirror, he could see the officer beginning to allow the traffic to flow once again, letting a few cars at a time pass in each direction. The positive side of the accident was that the road was now clear for quite a distance, although the curves hadn't straightened any. Five-thirty already. He reached for his cell phone and punched in Sarah's number. Three rings. Four. "Pick up, Sarah. You've got to be there," he said, as if speaking the words aloud would make it happen. Buy links |