The Confluence – Exclusive Excerpt

Read the first two chapters of my “suspenseful, time-hopping mystery.” The Confluence is available now for pre-order (with bonuses), and available everywhere July 1.

While there is still a month and a half before The Confluence officially hits the shelves, I just can’t wait any longer to let a little bit of it out. And so, with great excitement, a little pride, and a fair bit of nervous anticipation, here are the first two chapters.

I can’t wait to hear what you think!

-Gregory

Chapter One

August 13, 2019 – Tuesday

The ferocity of the first fat raindrops made it clear: Elliot had misjudged the storm. He flew around the curve in the path and into the too-wide exposure of the meadow, Lindsey hot on his heels, as a flash of light lit the sky. The thunder that followed punctuated the need to find shelter, fast. “Can you sprint?” he asked.

“For three miles?” she panted. “Forget about it. Let’s get back to the woods.”

“No,” he pointed across the meadow. “Maybe we can wait this out at the old farmhouse.”

“Isn’t that place condemned?”

Elliot registered the concern in her voice, but couldn’t spare the breath to address it. He glanced down at his ankles. Where moments before he’d been kicking up hot dust, splatters of warm mud reached upward, clinging to his calves with every stride. He lowered his head, pumped his arms, and pushed his legs harder.

The old farmhouse came into sharper focus—weathered clapboard siding that could no longer be called white, tall windows with cracked or missing panes, the wide porch with its decaying roof, the tired sign nailed across the front door with its red X against reflective white. It was two-hundred yards away, maybe less, when the sky opened and all was obscured behind a curtain of furious rain. They reached the low, young trees that had encroached on the field over the decades, and slowed. Behind him, Lindsey was laughing as they took the four rotten steps up to the porch two at a time.

She leaned—collapsed—against the wall of the house. “And you said we’d beat the rain.”

He laughed as he folded his legs onto the floor of the porch. It was wet, and the wind sent sprays of rain into his face, but it didn’t matter. He was already soaked. Judging by the quantity of water coming through the gaping holes in the roof, this could hardly be called shelter, but it was a million times better than the meadow.

“Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to start for another hour. At least we got half our run in. Coach would be proud.”

“Ha. I haven’t thought about Coach since we graduated. He’d have yelled at us to keep going.” She sat beside him and looked up. “I hope this thing doesn’t come down on our heads.”

“It’s been here this long and hasn’t fallen down, right? I wish we could go inside.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

He shrugged, then stood. “Could be cool.” To the right of the front door, he peered in through the cloudy glass of a window. The room inside was dark, but he could see it had once been pretty. A living room. Water-stained floral paper peeled from warped plaster and an enormous brick fireplace devoured most of the exterior wall. He pushed the window frame and found it gave slightly. If he wanted to, he was sure he could force it.

Lindsey stood and shoved him. “Knock it off, Elliot. We’re not going in there.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to her. There was a magnetism to this place, and he wondered how he’d never noticed before. The farm had been here, like this, his whole life—sold to the Town of Haverford as preservation land decades ago. He imagined it as it must have been—seven acres, family run, in continuous operation for over a century. Now it was just this—encroaching trees and receding meadow, pressed up against the banks of the Pentucket river, with this ruin of a farmhouse as the last holdout against nature’s reclamation of the land.

Around them, the roaring, constant percussion of the downpour began to ebb. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the rain ceased altogether. The hot August sun broke through the thick clouds, and back in the meadow, they could hear the songs of the birds. The transformation was instantaneous, and as the sunlight kissed the lichen-eaten wood of the porch, steam began to rise into the air.

Lindsey put her hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Elliot. Time to go. We’ve got three miles left in soggy shoes. Let’s get it over with.”

He nodded, but lingered a moment before following her down through the young trees and back to the path. She started to run, and as he followed, he kept turning back for a last glimpse, then another —truly the last this time. He felt the place calling to him with the persuasive, comforting voice of an old friend he’d somehow forgotten. It pulled, and as his pulse quickened against the effort of his legs, he felt an inexplicable longing begin to bloom within him.

It was an old farmhouse—crumbling at that—but maybe also the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

~*~

He left Lindsey at her house and dragged his tired feet the remaining third of a mile back to his own. Though it was a Tuesday afternoon—and early at that—when he turned off Pentucket Road and into the short drive down to the New Colony Apartment Village, he saw both his mother’s car and Tony’s waiting outside their first-floor unit. The storm had lingered longer here, and the red brick of the tenements was dark with the remnants of the rain. The two-storied seventies architecture was plain and cheap—and dirty—but wet, it looked almost clean.

He sighed, wondering why his mother was home early, and whether she was going to lose this most recent job like she’d lost countless others. It was Tony’s fault, he was sure. Tony, the flavor of the week who’d somehow managed to hang on. Tony, who’d moved in after two months and acted like he owned the place—owned Elliot and his mother too.

Still wet—it was too humid now for his clothes to have dried—he pulled his key from the little pouch in the front of his running shorts and opened the flimsy front door.

There they were—both on the sofa—his mother typing furiously at the little laptop Tony had bought her, and Tony with a cigarette hanging from his lips, leaning closely and watching over her shoulder. They stopped and looked at him as he closed the door.

“Why are you all wet?” his mother asked.

Elliot noticed the front blinds were closed. “There was a storm. Didn’t you hear the thunder?”

“C’mon, Lari,” Tony said as he tipped the ash from his cigarette into an empty juice glass on the beaten-up coffee table. “Let’s finish this up.”

Elliot bit down on his lip as he pulled off his soggy old running shoes. The place where the big toe of his right foot rubbed was wearing thin. He’d need a new pair soon if he was going to keep up his training. He was still a year away from transferring to a state school, and if he was going to walk onto the Cross-Country team as a junior, he couldn’t afford to let his fitness lapse.

His mother smiled. “No, I guess I was so involved in this I didn’t even notice. Tony and I are starting a business.”

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Oh, what kind of business?”

“Baby hats. I’m going to knit them and sell them online. People go crazy for that kind of stuff. You should see these boards on Pinterest. We’re just opening up the shop now, and we’re going to make a mint.”

“Have you actually knitted any?” Elliot asked.

“Well, not yet. But I’ll start tonight. Once we’re done with this part.”

Tony laughed, and there was an edge of cruelty in the sound—like he didn’t think she could do it, even as it was surely he who’d put the idea in her head. He dropped his cigarette into the juice glass and immediately reached for another from the pack on the coffee table.

Already fighting to keep from choking on the smoke in the room, Elliot cleared his throat. “I thought you were going to smoke outside from now on.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, put the cigarette between his lips, and lit it. “Are you the one paying rent around here?” He puffed his chest and inhaled. “That’s what I thought. Nothing to say. For a minute there I thought maybe the little fag boy had grown some balls.”

“Mom—” Elliot began, hating the quiver in his voice—the way the lancing of Tony’s tongue always left him babbling like a child. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that? Make him put it out. Make him apologize.”

A shadow crossed his mother’s face, and her eyebrows arched as she looked at Tony. “Oh, er—I don’t know if you—”

“Shut up, Larissa,” Tony said. “Are you going to baby him his whole life? If that little cocksucker doesn’t like what I have to say, he can stand up to me like a man, and we’ll settle it like men.”

Elliot gaped at his mother, feeling hot blood burning in his cheeks. He continued to stare. Five seconds. Ten. “Unbelievable,” he said, then stormed through, straight to the back of the apartment. He stepped into his room, slipped a pair of dry shoes over his wet socks, and grabbed his cell—a four-generations-old iPhone, with cracks on the screen that had been there as long as he’d owned it. Then he went out, through the kitchen and onto the patio.

There, his tired old mountain bike waited—the bike he’d gotten second hand when he was thirteen and was now far too small for his nearly twenty-year-old body. His fingers fumbled with the combination on the chain, but after a few tries, he got it undone and fished it out of the railing. He pushed the bike across the short strip of grass and onto the asphalt of the little street between his building and the next, climbed on and began to ride. He pedaled around his building and up the drive, back onto Pentucket Road.

Where to go? What to do?

Lindsey’s? No.

He thought of the farmhouse, the field, the singing of the birds and the young trees. He pictured the once pretty room and thought he’d hide out there for a while. Calm down. Feel some peace. Though his legs were tired, he pressed the pedals and sped the bike south, away from town and Tony and his mother. With each revolution of the crank, he felt the distance growing and slowly started to relax.

The first mile fell away, then the next. To his left, past the other side of the road, the Pentucket churned—swollen from the afternoon storm. After months of running low—the whole dry summer—it rushed and gurgled and groaned like a neglected siren, lilting a warning to the breeze.

Finally, he turned the bike off the road and onto the muddy path that led through the preserve.

As he neared the old farmhouse, he slowed the bike and dismounted. The odd magnetism he’d felt earlier returned—stronger now than before—and he wondered how he’d spent his whole life barely noticing this place. How many times had he run this path, and never given the old farmhouse a thought? He ducked into the low trees, lifting the bike as he went, and felt his heart quicken. A sturdy sapling provided a safe place to lean the bike, so he left it and went on unencumbered.

Then it was there—looming in front of him—beautiful in all its decay. He fished his phone from his pocket, and with a swipe to the left from the lock screen, brought up the camera. He turned the phone sideways. Framed the shot. Bending down and tilting the phone further, he captured as much of the structure as possible. Click. He moved a little to the left and caught another angle. Click.

He started too quickly up the rotten steps of the porch and caught his foot on the second tread. As he fought to keep his balance, the phone fell from his hand and dropped neatly—perfectly—through a hole in the third tread, where the wood had long ago fallen away.

“Shit,” he said, steadying himself. He kneeled on the second step and peered into the hole, hoping the phone had landed softly. There it was, blessedly face up, laying in a bed of detritus—decaying leaves, bits of wood, and a bleached potato chip bag that was probably as old as he was. He reached his arm downward, and as he closed his fingers over the phone, they grazed through the leaves and made contact with something else—something cold and hard. After pulling the phone out again, he wiped it on his shirt and flicked on the flashlight.

In the bright blue, artificial light, he was able to see. Where his phone had rested, something round and metal barely protruded from the matted leaves. He reached down, and, with a gentle wiggle, he loosened the thing and brought it up out of the hole.

As he regarded the tiny treasure—a coin of some kind—an electric shiver started in his fingers, rippled up his arm, through his chest and legs, and dissipated out through his toes. He rubbed the coin furiously between his thumb and forefinger, cleaning away the years of dirt and mud. Then he folded it in the fabric at the leg of his shorts and repeated the process. It still wasn’t clean, but at least he could make out the face. Odd. Ancient, maybe—or perhaps just made to look that way. On the surface of the dark, heavy metal, there was a raised symbol that looked like a scythe.

Standing, he held the coin tightly and took the last two steps onto the porch. He leaned against the wall of the house and slid down until he was sitting, turning the coin over and over in his fingers as he descended.

It was probably a trinket—not old or important at all—but in his present frame of mind, it felt like something more. A lucky coin. A talisman. With eyelids pressed together, he closed his fist around the metal, and without knowing exactly what he was doing—or why—he started to wish.

He laughed quietly to himself. Why not? There was a lot to wish for. He wished his mother, who’d been slowly retreating from him for years, would realize Tony was worse than any of the others who came before and get rid of him for both their sakes. He wished she’d find someone worthy of her—of both of them—and experience the happiness she’d once known with his father. He wished for the next year to pass quickly, and for some scholarship money to come through—his ticket out of Haverford to a brighter future. And he wished for—clarity, he thought. Just a little clarity.

He opened his eyes and smiled. What could it hurt? While he was at it, maybe he ought to have wished for bigger things—a billion dollars, world peace.

Nah, best not to be greedy, right?

He stood, putting the coin in the little pocket inside the front of his shorts, and moved to the window beside the closed-off front door. He pressed the pane upward and it gave. One inch. Two. Then it was stuck. He pushed harder, feeling the strain in his forearms and shoulders, but the window wouldn’t give. He could smell the stale, stagnant air of the pretty room beyond—wet wood and earthy mildew. There had to be another way in.

He skipped down the steps and surveyed his options. There were other windows around the side, he knew, without glass. But they were too high up. He moved off to the left, into the tall ferns and low brush, wondering if he could find something to stand on to gain entry. But then, from behind, a distinctly human sound—the aggressive clearing of a throat—froze his feet and lifted the fine hairs at the base of his neck.

Slowly, he turned away from the house and found himself staring into the angry face of a little girl. Beneath her nearly-black curls, the bluest eyes he’d ever seen pierced him straight through. Hands on her hips, she shook her head slowly. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

He sputtered. “I, uh—sorry, I—”

“Why are you standing in the middle of my nasturtiums?”

Chapter Two

Elliot looked down at his feet. Nasturtiums grew at the Haverford Community Farm, where he worked a couple of days a week—round, peppery leaves with orange and red flowers. The shareholders liked to harvest them for the weekly pick-your-own and add them to salads. But there were no nasturtiums here—only ferns, and wood poppy, some wild bluebells, and low shrubs he couldn’t identify.

He looked at the girl again—really looked at her this time—and his eyes widened. She was short, with sun-kissed skin, somewhere between the ages of six and eight, he thought. Above her dirt-stained knees, she wore a denim dress in the style of overalls, with buckles at the shoulder straps. A white-and-red checkered hem framed the bottom, and the pockets sewn onto each hip. The dress was unlike anything he’d ever seen in a store, and he shivered—it was surely hand-made, and of another era.

He continued to stare at her with terrifying certainty. It wasn’t just the antique clothing—something about the girl’s skin was strange—a matte quality against the sunny day around them, as if she alone stood under a clouded sky. It was impossible, but—

This little girl was a ghost.

She was quaking now. “Get out of my flowers, you bully,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Elliot stepped back, and as she continued to glare, he stepped again. “I, uh, I can’t see them,” he said. “Is this far enough?”

She rolled her eyes, and her quaking stopped. “Yes, dummy. What do you mean you can’t see them? What are you doing here on my farm anyway?”

“Your…farm?”

“You’d better get out of here, Mister, or I’m going to call my Papa.”

Elliot felt a twinge of panic. “Wait. Just wait.” He needed to think, and fast. Wrapping his mind around this pint-sized specter was difficult enough. Then he swallowed a sudden urge to laugh. Specters? He was losing it. This girl couldn’t be a ghost.

“Okay,” he said. “Where are your parents?”

The girl bristled. “I’m warning you, Mister. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. You’d better get out of here, or Papa is going to be real mad.”

Elliot crossed his arms. “Well, I think I’d like to talk to your Papa. Where is he?”

She looked suddenly uncertain. “He’s in the wash house. He’s going to be real mad if I have to get him. You get out of here.” She was quaking again.

Seeing her fear, something broke in Elliot, and he was overcome with the urge to comfort her, crazy or not. He stepped forward and reached out a hand, but she let out a high shriek and stepped back into the low saplings. Only, that wasn’t exactly true. She stepped through the low saplings. As he looked at her, he froze. The trunk of a young maple now protruded straight through the top of her head.

The realization—she was a ghost after all—raised the fine hairs of his neck. Elliot considered whether he should flee, but the girl was still terrified, so instead, he raised his hands and sat slowly on the ground. “Am I sitting in the flowers?” he asked.

Cautiously, she shook her head no. “Please, will you leave?”

“Not just yet. My name is Elliot. What’s yours?”

“S-Sofia.”

He nodded and smiled. “Okay, Sofia. I have a question for you.” He continued to marvel at the tree protruding through the top of her head. If he couldn’t see what she saw, then perhaps she couldn’t see what he did. “Can you look at your flowers, Sofia? Did I crush any of them, or are they the way they were before I got here?”

She cocked her head and crept forward, then around him, leaving a wide berth. When she circled back to the front her shoulders slumped. “No, they’re all okay. But, you trampled them. I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” He watched her for a moment, her face more distressed than ever, until an idea occurred to him. “Maybe I’m your imaginary friend?”

Sofia’s face smoothed into a smile. “You’re dressed very funny for an imaginary friend.” She looked past him back to the house—looked like she was listening. “This boy, Mama,” she shouted. A few moments passed, and she continued. “Of course he’s not there, Mama. He’s my imaginary friend.” She looked at Elliot. “Mama can’t see you, so I guess you’re right. You are my imaginary friend. Or maybe you’re a ghost, but I don’t think so.”

Elliot laughed, even as he shivered. “Oh no? Why not? I could be a ghost.”

“No. Ghosts are bad, and I’m protected from bad things.”

He bit his lower lip, thinking maybe he should tell her, but held his tongue. “Oh? How are you protected?”

With a wide grin, she reached into one of the pockets of her dress. When she opened her closed hand, Elliot gasped. “It belonged to my Nonno,” she said. Pale, cloudy light lit the coin—cleaner and brighter than how he’d found it, but the same coin, to be sure. He touched the little pocket in the front of his running shorts to be certain. Yes, still there.

The wave of sadness that descended upon him came even quicker than the summer storm an hour before. He stood, doing his best to keep smiling. “Um, it was very nice to meet you, Sofia, but I have to go now if that’s alright.”

She frowned but nodded. “Nice to meet you Elliot, my imaginary friend.”

He hurried toward his bike, leaning against the sapling a few feet away, and the denial washed over him. This couldn’t really be happening. Maybe when he’d forced the window of the farmhouse, he’d inhaled some kind of hallucinogenic mold. He turned one last time as he lifted his bike and headed back toward the path. Sofia was still there, watching him curiously. The moment he set his tires on the muddy path—beginning to dry now—he was away, feet pedaling furiously.

Say it was true—that there had once been a child named Sofia who lived on the farm. If she was real—if she was now the ghost he’d seen —then her little talisman couldn’t have worked, and that was the saddest part. She believed, in her suspended state, that she was safe. But to be a ghost? To have died at such a young age? The irony was horrible.

But then, turning back onto Pentucket Road, the denial returned. The roar of the Pentucket—less swollen than before—the sweet, thick taste of the humid air, the hot sun on his back, the call of the birds, the swarm of gnats he rode through under the shadow of a tall oak— these things were real. They were incontrovertible. Ghostly children and lucky coins from an Italian grandfather—a Nonno? And yet, he could feel the coin in his pocket—feel its weight against his groin every time his legs turned the pedal cranks. This constant revolution of denial-acceptance-denial, spinning around in his mind as quickly as the bicycle cassette beneath his feet, was maddening. There was only one way to break it, and as he turned into the drive down to the New Colony Apartment Village, he knew what he had to do.

He’d find out if she’d ever lived. And if she had? He’d return to her.

~*~

Tony’s car was missing from the front, and when Elliot stepped from the patio into the kitchen, he was relieved to find the apartment empty. There was a note on the little round dining table, and he glanced at it briefly:

Elliot,
Went to get yarn, etc. Be back later. Dinner in the fridge if you get hungry. Love,
Mom

Elliot looked at the clock on the stove. Not yet three in the afternoon. There was a craft store in downtown Haverford. Where the hell were they going to get yarn that they wouldn’t be back for dinner? Connecticut? He didn’t care. He took a shower, relieved to rid his skin of the sweat and salt and mud. Clean again, he retrieved the coin from his running shorts and set it on his nightstand. Then he crawled beneath the covers, despite the heat of the bedroom—no air conditioning—and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

When he woke, it was after five-thirty, and he was drowning in enough sweat he thought he needed another shower. Tony and his mother were still gone, so he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the container of chicken salad he presumed his mother intended as dinner. He spread some between slices of bread and made a salad with what was left of the lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes he’d brought home after his morning at the community farm the previous Friday.

Then he sat at the little dining table with his phone, and between bites of chicken salad, typed furiously into the browser.

The information was sparse:

WRIGHT-CALISTI FARM RESERVATION: TOWN OF HAVERFORD, MA

Sold to the Town of Haverford under “generous and philanthropic terms” in 1962 by community real-estate titan George Calisti, the Wright-Calisti Farm Reservation is a 7-acre preserve at the heart of the Pentucket Natural Area. Consisting of new-growth forest and meadow, the farm connects trails from Lake Haverford to the confluence with the Merrimack River. The meadow is a sanctuary for several bird species …

Elliot scanned quickly and skipped ahead.

Founded in 1851 by Josiah Wright, the W-C Farm remained in continuous operation, under the same family until 1959. Following the marriage of Elizabeth Wright (1895-1958) to Italian immigrant Stefano Calisti (1893-1959) in 1918, the Calisti name was added to the farm. But Stefano Calisti brought more than his name to the W-C Farm. Throughout the last four decades of operation, Calisti’s Italian influence introduced the people of Haverford to then-exotic European vegetables …

He scanned further.

A combination of family tragedy and the flood of August 1959 cut the season short, and the W-C Farm never recovered. While the loss of the farm was keenly felt by the community of Haverford, the Wright-Calisti Farm Reservation still exists today as both a vibrant recreational resource and a reminder of Harverford’s rich agricultural and industrial past. Although outbuildings, such as the wash house and greenhouses have long since been demolished, the two-story 1850s farmhouse still stands …

Elliot closed the browser on his phone. A family tragedy and a flood? His skin was suddenly clammy, and he chewed absently, no longer tasting the bread or chicken, the mayonnaise or celery. Cautiously, he reopened the browser on his phone and searched for Sofia Calisti 1959. The results were disappointing. Two full screens of Facebook and LinkedIn results spilled into a list of sites promising background checks. Has Sofia Calisti been arrested? Check for free! No good.

He wasn’t going to find answers on the internet. He needed a more personal approach, which would be difficult, but possible. The Calistis were a prominent family in Haverford, and he’d known them intimately, once.

One in particular.

Cameron Calisti.

Of course he thought of Cam—who’d taken a job halfway through the season at the community farm. Cam, who he’d gone to school with for years and used to be his best friend. Cam, who he couldn’t bear to talk to now—hadn’t had a real conversation with in years— because Cam had changed in ways that made Elliot feel uncomfortable, and excited, and more than a little ashamed. The silence between them remained because their past was too painful, and Elliot had no one to blame but himself. But he’d see him tomorrow morning, and maybe if he could work up the courage—

Without realizing, he’d finished his dinner. After a quick rinse under the sink, he deposited his plate in the dishwasher and headed back to his room. He wanted to look at the pictures he’d taken and to text Lindsey. Most of all, he wanted answers, but those, he realized, would have to wait.

~*~

When his mother and Tony came back in sometime after ten, loud and stumbling and drunk and jolly, he flicked off the light on his nightstand. Let them think he was asleep. After a minute there was a clumsy knock on his door and his mother’s slurred voice. “Elliot?” He ignored her and pulled the covers over his head. It was time for bed anyways—he had to be at the community farm by seven the next morning. “Elliot, honey. Love you, El.”

He squeezed his eyelids tightly together, ashamed of the dampness he felt at the corners. “Love you too, Mom,” he said, quiet enough that she wouldn’t hear.

~*~

Three thousand miles away, Destin Duprée sat in her lavish apartment in San Francisco’s Nob Hill and gazed out the bay window at the setting sun. She wondered, absently, if she’d miss this view. The bits of the bay she could see shimmered golden, and the sky was painted in bold strokes as high, lacy clouds blew in off the Pacific. She’d enjoyed San Francisco—in her mind, America’s most Mediterranean city—but she’d longed to return to Europe. She began to curse her luck—to lament these years waiting and watching when all this time the coin had slumbered in Haverford. But then she laughed a little and took another sip of her bitter Negroni. Better to live in California than Massachusetts. Boston was fine, but too small and cold for her taste.

She took in the last of the daylight before the long, lingering gloaming began to usher in the night. The years spent in California had been good—an unexpected reprieve from her duties—but that all changed now. The coin was awake. She could feel the pull—the unspoken mandate to reclaim what was stolen.

After another sip from the martini glass—she always preferred her liquor up—she retrieved her laptop from the floor and refreshed the page. Right on cue. Perhaps her influence these days was minimal, but sometimes minimal was enough.

TOWN OF HAVERFORD: OFFICE OF THE MAYOR – EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT – VACANCY TO BE FILLED IMMEDIATELY

She smiled as she clicked the link to apply, then attached the cover letter and resumé she’d prepared earlier in the day when she’d set everything in motion. In the end, she knew it was unnecessary. The job was hers. In another era she might not have gone to all the effort —might’ve just shown up—but times were different now. There were digital trails to everything. There were enquiring minds and, as she acknowledged, her influence wasn’t as great as it had once been. Perhaps that was about to change, but right now, in this digital age, an inflated resumé was worth the effort.

After sending the application, she loaded the airline website and chose a flight early in the morning. Though she knew she wouldn’t sleep, she was accustomed to a certain degree of luxury, so she selected a window seat in one of those nice new lay-flat pods they offered. It was egregiously expensive, but money didn’t matter; she had more of it than she could possibly spend.

The Negroni was gone, so she went to the little bar cart and mixed herself another, delighting at the cold against her skin as she vigorously shook the metal shaker and watched its surface grow a frost from the humid air. She strained it into her glass and took up her former spot in the window. The sky was cobalt now, and as she took a sip of her fresh drink—nearly overflowing—she shivered with delight.

Where was Guillaume, she wondered—wondered if he even called himself that anymore. Would he be waiting for her when she landed —the old foe more of a friend than anyone she’d known in this life? And wasn’t that ironic? Even through all the struggle, the world had always been her oyster. And yet, the thing she longed for above all else was the presence and familiarity of her old nemesis.

She laughed and drained her drink in a single, long, burning draw. It was time to pack.

Pre-Order Today, Finish the Story July 1

Thank you, thank you! Thanks for taking a first look at The Confluence. If you like what you see (and I certainly hope you do), please consider pre-ordering from your retailer of choice. You’ll help this book get off to a strong start, and I’ll be eternally grateful. Plus, email your receipt to qualify for some exclusive bonuses.

The Confluence is available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Your local bookseller (extra bonuses for ordering local. And karma. Good karma.)

Share your thoughts! What do you think of the excerpt? Have you pre-ordered your copy? Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments below.

Thanks as always for reading,

Gregory