Free Return to The Deep (From The Deep Book 2) by Michael Bray Page A

wore it well. One thing she couldn’t hide behind her expensive makeup, designer clothes, and bleach whitened teeth, was her creativity, or in this case, lack of. She was sitting at her desk, staring at the blinking cursor with no clue of what to write or how to do it.
    Writing the first book had been easy, almost a therapeutic exercise as she recounted what had happened to her in real life, and changing just enough to push it into the realms of fiction. She had changed names but not characters, locations but not events. Of course, the government got wind of what she was doing and did everything they could to stop her. She had, however, gambled (rightly) on the fact that they would stop short of actually taking action for the simple reason that it was in their best interests not to have the general public digging into why they were so interested in the story. As far as burials go, the actual facts about what happened five years earlier had been expertly covered up. Dexter’s murder had been turned into an accidental death at sea. Russo's existence had been deleted completely, which to her was frustrating as it meant that the slimy, jittery government agent had gotten away with his crimes even in death. Without warning, she saw him in her mind’s eye, those deep, penetrating eyes, which felt as if they were staring straight through you. Even though he was long dead, the thought of him was still frightening, so much so that in her fictional retelling of the story, Russo had been replaced by a much tamer, less intensely cruel man. Her agent had suggested as a villain he was perhaps too nice, and even though there were numerous requests to beef up the evil scale, Clara had refused. She couldn’t tell her agent why, but even in the realms of fiction, Russo was too far off the scale to justify bringing back to life in print.
    There was never any expectation from the book, no real plans to try to sell it at first. She had written it mostly as a means to cope, to get the events out of her mind and onto paper in the hope of exorcising the demons. For the most part, it had worked, and had allowed her to resume some sense of normality. It was only when she showed a few pages to a friend that things changed. Blown away by the opening chapters, Clara’s friend had pressed her to send a copy to a literary agent friend of hers. Again, with no expectation of anything, Clara went along with it, posting a copy of the manuscript and promptly forgetting all about it. A month or so later, she received a call back from the agent with news that if she signed with them, they could secure a lucrative contract with a publisher who was interested in publishing the book.
    Had she known the attention it would get, she might have declined. Now though, it was too late to turn back, and although it had made her an incredibly wealthy woman, it still hadn’t made her happy.
    Turning away from the blinking cursor on screen, she picked up her phone and navigated to the address book, scrolling to Rainwater’s number and hesitating, wondering why she still had it after all this time. Her thumb hovered over the dial button, wishing she could just speak to him to ask his advice.
    No.
    Not after what happened. Those bridges are long burned, and the modern day versions of Rainwater and herself were worlds apart from the ones that met five years earlier. With a sigh, she put the phone on the desk and returned her attention to the screen.

 
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    Clayton shifted in the front seat of the pickup, unsure if he was more nervous or excited. He decided it was the former, and looked out the window as traffic rolled past them.
    "Take it easy," Jim said from the passenger side, one arm hanging nonchalantly out of the window. "Smoke?"
    Clayton took the offered cigarette, lighting up and blowing smoke out the open window. "I don’t like this."
    "We agreed. It's all worked out."
    "What if something goes wrong? We can’t plan for everything."
    "Trust