Book Excerpt TRACE

Book Excerpt

If she had expected her statement to create a sensation, she would have been disappointed. Fortunately, she never expected much of anything from the detectives, didn’t care whether they believed her, responded to them only when they were too rude to let slide, which was often, but not so often that it made any kind of dent in her steely exterior. There were frowns, there were glances exchanged, there were the usual skeptical lip-curlings and nostril-flarings, even a couple of eye-rollings. Only Dalton, Matt, and Jeb showed any signs of concern. Nola had never talked about a person before, only places. One thing was no different this time from all the others, though: she sounded absolutely certain of the truth of her words.

And yet in truth, she wasn’t certain at all.

“Care to elaborate?” Of course Marshall Schultz was the first to respond, and of course he made sure to use the snarky tone he usually took with her.

“I … can’t. I don’t know what it means, whether he’s witnessed it or covered for it or done it—or wants to do it. Or something else entirely. I’m not sure. I just know …” There were suddenly so many unblinking eyes on her that she could only finish with, “That’s all I have to say.” She nodded awkwardly to Jack Dalton and dashed out of the room, out of the building, to the parking lot, where she got into her car, drove three blocks to a grocery store, and parked again. She hadn’t wanted any of the detectives to see her sitting in her car, but she was too wound up to keep driving.

Something different had happened in that house that morning, something she didn’t understand.

She had heard voices.

As soon as she admitted this to herself, she wanted to laugh hysterically. Voices! Three years it had taken her to build up the PD’s grudging belief that she wasn’t a kook or a charlatan, in large part because she made it clear that what she did was based in science and not psychosis. She was an objective observer who recorded data. That was all. Until now. Now she was hearing voices.

“A trace can’t talk,” she muttered. “A trace has no consciousness. It’s particles, energy. It isn’t a ghost.” She caught herself before she could say, “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” which would have been just too ridiculously B-grade horror movie.

But there was no escaping what she had heard: Help me. Over and over, a desperate cry to be saved. It wasn’t coming from any trace attached to the house. The cries were mobile, moving through space, following the man who had been standing next to her when she first entered the room.

About the Books

TRACE

She knows what happens when you die.

Nola Lantry is a tracist: she can sense the particles of energy that are released when the human body expires. It’s a somewhat gruesome ability, but Nola uses it to bring some meaning to her otherwise drab life in upstate New York by assisting the Redfort Police Department on missing person cases. When the richest man in town, Culver Bryant, disappears, Nola finds herself in the middle of a case that is both baffling and increasingly dangerous, the danger appearing in the form of death threats as well as the missing man’s brother, Grayson. Does Grayson Bryant pursue Nola to seduce her or to stop her—and why does Nola feel a connection with him despite her mistrust?

VIBE/SYNC

Barely a week has passed since she solved her last case and Nola Lantri is already involved in several new mysteries—with a couple of people who may be just as unusual as Nola herself.

Part 1: Vibe

Eric Lafferty has returned to Redfort City a little too late for his father’s funeral but just in time to get mixed-up in a mystery that involves Nola Lantri, Grayson Bryant, a dead girl and a missing woman. Eric’s ability to read the vibrational changes in brain waves should be an asset, yet it only seems to make life more difficult for him—and given that he and Nola might be the next victims, things are difficult enough.

Part 2: Sync

Emjay used to steal things—nothing big, just enough to get by—but after a terrible accident changes her life, Emjay has only one thing on her mind: revenge. Suddenly private investigator Nola Lantri appears and questions Emjay about her past—and informs her that the mysterious man she works for has a complicated past of his own. Emjay must figure out the best use of her odd ability to “sync,” a technique intended to help people heal—but one that also can cause a lot of harm.

Author Bio

Letitia L. Moffitt was born and raised in Hawaii. She received a doctoral degree in English/Creative Writing from Binghamton University. Her first novel, Sidewalk Dancing, was published by Atticus Books in November 2013. Her novel Trace—Book 1 of the TraceWorld series—was published by Cantraip Press in March 2015. Vibe/Sync, Book 2 of the series, will be released by Cantraip Press in April 2016. In her spare time Moffitt runs ultramarathons and blogs about her experiences at http://letitiamoffitt.blogspot.com.

Links

Buy Trace on Amazon (Kindle)

Buy Trace on Amazon (Paperback)

Categories: book excerpts, paranormal mystery