Camden Estates: An Idyllic Facade with a Dark Secret | Preorder Now

My newest book, “Broken From Within” is out for preorder. It is a story I have never tried in that it’s a detective story with a twist. Here’s a sample. Please remember that this is only lightly edited. Please go easy on me guys 😉

Here’s the sample

Camden Estates looked like a nice place to live. The first impressions of the people that walked by its sprawling green lawns thought so too. One large gothic-looking building surrounded by five smaller ones set in the middle of meticulous landscaping.

The grounds were shaded by large trees that covered a long walkway that led to the main building. The trees leafy canopies made you want to lie down and read a book or just catch a few minutes of sleep. Which would be easy to do if the breeze blowing through the leaves was just right.

Yes, Camden was idyllic looking to the outside world. What most people who passed by the beautiful buildings and grounds didn’t know was that the residents who ended up in Camden Estates had only one more task to complete. And that task was to die.

***

The Tree Line Drive always threatened to put Detective Tommy Shift to sleep everytime he came to see his grandma. It didn’t help that most times he made the drive in the early morning and hadn’t seen his bed since the previous day. Tommy Schiff never tried to talk himself out of these visits, though. Even if the woman had no idea who he was. That forgetful woman had raised him when he’d had no one. And in Tommy’s eyes, coming to see her two or three times a week was the Least he could do.

His radio squawked and he listened to it for a second before he turned it off.

“Beat cop shit is handled by the beat cops.” He said to the interior of the car. Stolen crap and druggies were no longer his business, he thought, as he turned into one of the many empty parking spots that sat directly in front of the main nursing home building. Tommy looked up at the large Gothic Building and a quick chill went through him. Although it was a beautiful structure from an architectural standpoint, he’d fought hard to get his grandmother placed in one of the other buildings. The main one had a certain vibe to it. It was also where most violent Alzheimer’s cases went. His Grandma didn’t know things anymore, but she certainly wasn’t violent.

Tommy turned off the car and sat looking out the window. The vehicle’s engine clicked and popped as it cooled down from the previous busy night. Tommy felt himself decompressing, he looked forward to this moment almost every night when he could sit and let all the vile things he’d seen the night before float to the surface, where they could be studied in his head. He’d learned a long time ago stuffing the bad shit down either made you an asshole who stuck a pistol in your mouth after a few years, or it made you a horrible detective, not to mention a horrible person. You had to live in it after a shift. Not long. Just a short swim in the cesspool that was Akron City.

The images of a man flashed in his mind. And emaciated body line on a wood floor With its stiffened fingers clutching of cell phone. Judging by the photos on the walls of the house and the perfectly healthy whaling wife in the next room, Tommy had known the Knight fiend had killed again. Something was literally sucking the life out of people. It had been the third case like this he’d been on in less than three months. This person, no. This thing liked to kill middle-aged men from about 35 to 45 years old while their families slept unaware. And it was ramping up its killing spree, just like any other serial killer.

The sound of a lawn mower broke him out of his meditation. He watched as the old man who mowed the lawn rode in a circle, mowing the small portion of the grass right in front of Tommy’s car. He talked to the man a couple of times, but he could never remember the guy’s name. Tommy waved as he got out of the car, and the man nodded and continued his mowing turning his back to Tommy.