Destruction: The December People, Book One

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© 2014 Sharon Bayliss
http://sharonbayliss.com

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ISBN 978-1-62007-514-2 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-515-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62007-516-6 (hardcover)

Sharon Bayliss did an amazing job creating this magical world that lies beneath our own. I love being under the spell of an excellent new series.
~Jen Estes (
Goodreads Review
)

1. Start Reading
   
2. About the Author
   
3. A Taste of
   The Charge
   , by Sharon Bayliss
   
4. Copyright & Publisher
   
5. More Books from
   Curiosity Quills Press
   
6. Full Table of Contents
   

For my mother.
When I was a little girl and couldn’t sleep, my mother told me to make up stories in my head. Best advice I’ve ever gotten. I love you, Mom.

“Though my soul may set in darkness it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” – Sarah Williams

avid had waited for an important call for eleven years, and even after all this time, his heart raced every time he heard the phone ring. Even in church, or while making love to his wife, his fingers itched to pick up on the first ring. Any call could be
the
call.

The call finally came when David lay in bed with Amanda watching television. She slept with her head on his arm. His fingers tingled from the weight of her head cutting off his circulation, but he didn’t push her away. She never seemed to slow down until she lay in bed next to him. Only then could he see the blonde tips of her eyelashes and the freckles between her breasts. No one else noticed these things, perhaps not even Amanda herself. These details belonged to him alone.

When David’s phone rang on the nightstand, Amanda opened her eyes. An unfamiliar 432 area code lit up the display.

“It’s almost midnight,” Amanda said.

“I’m sorry.”

“All your kids are at home, babe, so it’s nothing important. Business can wait until morning.”

“Hello,” David said into the receiver.

“May I speak with David Vandergraff?” The woman on the end of the line had a thick West Texas accent, and she stretched out the vowels in his last name.

“This is he,” David said.

Amanda shook her head and rolled over in bed. She had given up on trying to fix his phone answering habit a long time ago.

“My name is Josie Barstow. I work for the Odessa Police Department. I’m calling about the missing persons report you filed for your children in 2002.”

David stopped breathing. He slipped into their master bathroom and closed the door. He had waited a long time for this, but he could never have prepared himself for the rush of hope and terror that came with the prospect of finally knowing. Her words swam around in his head, and he couldn’t seem to hold on to any of them. Until he heard the one word he really wanted to hear.

“Alive.”

He expelled a breath he had held for years.

“Where are they?” David asked.

“A children’s shelter here in Odessa.”

A brief moment passed where the gravity in the small room seemed to increase. He could feel the weight of his next words, feel them hovering in the air like a wrecking ball about to come down. Without thinking about it, he picked up Amanda’s night cream, unscrewed the top, then sniffed it. It smelled like flowers and something summery, like citrus. That’s how she smelled when she crawled in bed next to him every night.

“I’m coming to get them.”

“There are legal arrangements that will need to be made.”

“That’s fine. But I’m bringing my children home with me.”

David tried to slip out of the bathroom quietly, but Amanda had not gone back to sleep. She sat up in bed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You’re all pale, like you haven’t breathed in the last five minutes.”

“It was Liza, you know, my VP of human resources,” he said. “Her mother died, and she wanted to let me know she wouldn’t be coming in for a while.”

Amanda nodded solemnly.

“Sorry to hear that,” she said, then slid under the covers again.

He couldn’t tell her yet. He needed another night with her. He needed another ten thousand nights.

avid spent the better part of Thursday afternoon figuring out the best way to tell Amanda what he had done… and what he had to do next. He wrote down phrases like, “It was a long time ago. I’ve been faithful ever since,” and “I love you more than anything. I’ll do anything to make our marriage work.” No matter how true the words were, they fell flat on the page. He knew they wouldn’t be good enough.