Today, we feature a sneak peek of Francene Ladue’s gripping crime/suspense novel, Crazy Heat.
After twenty years of covert rescues, retired Air Force Special Ops vet, Bobby Egan is struggling to find his place in civilian life. Egan has spent the last two years working a dead-end job at the 24 Hour MiniMart in Tucson, but all that’s about to change thanks to friends and acquaintances, presenting some strange opportunities. It isn’t long before Bobby realizes he’s entangled in a dangerous triangle of romance, friendship and business. Everybody’s got an agenda they aren’t sharing with Bobby, and the only way out is to trust his instincts and experience, even if it means breaking the law and using deadly force to stay alive.
Crazy Heat is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online bookstores. Learn more about author Francene LaDue at her website, www.franceneladue.com
Here is an excerpt from Crazy Heat:
One
It was well after three a.m. by the time Bobby stood in the parking lot of the Pet Emporium out on Broadway Boulevard holding a vintage Tommy Aaron 5-iron in an overlapping grip. He adjusted his footing slightly, kept his eyes on the first in a row of six yellow golf balls he had lined up roughly twenty-five feet back from the structure’s glass storefront. The man momentarily paused to clear his mind, loosened up on his grip just a bit then brought the club up through an arc and down pendulum-like, calm and unhurried, building up the desired speed toward his target.
Thwack!
Bobby heard the pop as he followed through his upswing and wondered if the ball was coming back at him. He squinted up at the two-story glass panel. The yellow ball was lodged in the window like a cork frozen in a vertical pond. So that’s the way it was going to be. He stepped up to the next ball and introduced it to the 5-iron.
Thwack!
The panel exploded, sparkled under the outside security lights. The store’s alarm shrilled. Bobby was intruding. He readjusted his footing and took the next shot.
Thwack!
The second window shattered with the first hit; cheaper glass maybe. Bobby thought about the wedding photo printed in the Tucson Free Press of his girlfriend and her new husband.
Thwack!
Thwack!
The guy owned the Pet Emporium.
Bobby bent down, picked up the last golf ball and held it, ran his thumb over its dimpled surface, not in any hurry, the store alarm shrilling. He checked the club head. It was chewed up. The parking lot made for an unfriendly driving range. Bobby squeezed the ball tight into the palm of his hand; let himself feel the hurt and anger then pitched it into a corner section of the cheaper glass panel still intact. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hear it shatter over the sound of the alarm—the moment was all in the brief twinkle of glass.
Bobby rested the 5-iron on his shoulder and turned crossing the empty lot to his blue ‘78 Ford pickup, but before climbing into the cab he popped the buttons on his jeans and emptied his bladder. Feeling relieved but not all that satisfied, he pulled the truck out onto Broadway Boulevard heading east toward the Rincon Mountains.
The more he thought about Anna and her new husband, Dwayne Peterson, curled around one another, contentedly sleeping in their marital bed, the more it worked at his insides. Bobby slammed his fist down onto the dashboard, twice. He rolled down the window for some air and gave the truck a little more gas. He didn’t seem to notice that he’d just run a red light.
