The Window Shade and the Author -

Journal Entry: June 7, 2012

Last evening as I was putting the finishing touches on chapter # 4 of my upcoming novel, I ran into a complete roadblock! Gads…I hate that! I had to walk away from my computer entirely as I pieced the final details together. I hadn’t quite figured out how “Evan” was going to play out the concluding scene of chapter 4.

I took a long walk to clear my head. As I was out walking, thinking over different scenarios, it hit me like a brick out of nowhere… how chapter 4 should close! I will have to reconstruct most of chapter 4 to be able to close the chapter with the right angle/situation to make the next few chapters flow.

Like a dummy, I always seem to jump ahead as things come to me in the middle of the night. YES, things DO come to me in the middle of the night and that’s how I get chapters ahead of where I really should be. It’s stupid! really! Why do I do that to myself? Sometimes tying the two together proves quite challenging.

It’s so simple, I don’t understand why I didn’t see it yesterday…Evan has to die!

Morning coffee is over, it’s time to crack my knuckles, lift the window shades in the office and get busy.

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Before the author could reconstruct chapter four, she realized that she would have to go back into chapter 3, dumb it down a lot, and do some reconstructive work there as well.
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Chapter 3


“Evan Colby! Who does he think he is moving into my peaceful country space?” thoughts flashed through Frances mind. Why hadn’t she acted sooner and bought the lot of property next to her 5 acre spread when it had come on the market? Truth be told, it had only been on the market for 6 weeks prior to Evan Colby moving in. She hadn’t gotten her act together soon enough. But 6 weeks was awfully quick for a raw piece of land to be plucked off the market.

Frances had had the most breathtaking view of the small lake on the vacant raw land next to hers. There was a small year-round creek running through her property that fed the small lake. From her deck she could watch the ducks come and go from the lake. Several different species inhabited the small lake. Several beautiful pairs of ducks- Wood ducks, some Mallards and some Golden eye’s that Frances had been watching for years just prior to Evan Colby buying the property.

Evan Colby hadn’t wasted any time bringing in big pieces of groundbreaking equipment as he broke ground for the foundation of his new house. In reality, Frances had no beef with that part of his progress; where he decided to place the house – YES! And it was the 6-foot tall privacy wall that he had placed all around his sauna on an already mounted 4-foot off the ground DECK in the rear of his house! A 10-foot tall total- privacy wall that obstructed her view of the lake, of…of… the precious ducks that she so enjoyed watching!

On the whole of that 10 acre lot, why had he place that house right there when he could have placed it in any number of multiple locations through-out his property. He did it to be nasty. That was all she had stewed about for months. Evan Colby must die! How would she get the job done? … she thought to herself as she slowly rubbed her fingers over her chin.

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The author, Anna, paused between chapters, thinking about the entry to chapter # 4. Glancing up from her monitor, she noticed a black car exiting the end of her long driveway, standing up, she leaned into the window to have a closer look, eventually shrugging it off as someone lost or simply turning around. What she wouldn’t know until a little later in the morning was that there had been a mysterious package left on her front porch.

Anna Wohlberg was a NY Times best selling author and thanks to social media sites like Phace Nook, she could communicate daily with her fans to some degree. Anna often posted notes to her fans about struggles with storylines, always careful not to give away too much information about an upcoming novel, and she posted polls. Polls to see which novel her fans favored the most. Most of her fans were women, but she had a few male admirers as well that she knew of on Phace Nook. Mostly her targeted audience was murder mystery lovers. She often added a splash of romance here and there to add supplementary interest to storylines.

The novel Anna was currently working on was very much anticipated by her fans, she had been very inactive with her writing since the death of her late husband, Paul, of 15 years, who incredibly - much like some of her novels, had died rather suddenly & without waning. Autopsy reports couldn’t give any impressions of an illness nor had they proved anything was wrong with him at all - it’s as if he simply shouldn’t have died! His death was a mystery that shook Anna’s very foundation. It took months for her to start properly caring for herself once again, and it took years for Anna to become interested in her writing once again.

Anna dismissed the car at the end of her driveway, she sat back down and began working once again. Several hours had passed rather swiftly as she re-routed her book to include the murder of “Evan Colby.” The ringing of her phone jarred Anna’s concentration; she hurried to type the last few words ending the paragraph that she was currently working on
“Hello” answered Anna in a pleasant, welcoming voice, but the voice on the other end of the phone wasn’t so welcoming, nor was his message….

“I can see you Anna,” stated the eerie voice on the other end of the line. “Why haven’t you opened my package Anna?”

A chill ran all the way down the back of Anna’s spine triggering goose bumps all over her body.

Click…. and then the hum of a dial tone was all she heard.

Anna’s eyes darted to the window in front of her. Off in the distance she could see that very same black car slowly pulling away from the lane she live on. She had been so preoccupied with her novel that she hadn’t noticed its return. Anna was instantly so frightened, nothing like this had ever happened to her before! Quickly she pulled the window shade in her office and ran all the way through the house doing likewise… pulling shades over every exposed window she could find.

As she pulled the shades in the living room she noticed a medium sized cardboard box sitting on the front porch of her home. Grabbing the nearest telephone, she swiftly dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1…. What is your emergency?”

-------

Wolberg huh ? Wolberg . . German or Ukranian maybe ? He guessed German, but definitely of Jewish descent.
Anna . . . yeah, there was the German. He wondered what she looked like. Probably some old polka dancer left to
her eccentric ways, turning to writing as a legitimate, over-the-hill trade of all trades. He laughed to himself as a mental picture of her popped up in front of him. Maybe a giant of a woman, retired from beer chugging parties and
wet T-Shirt contests. Able to pick him up and squeeze the bejesus right out of him ! He laughed again.

So why would she be afraid of a little package on her porch ?

When the call had come in, Jason Burke had been ready to knock off early and do a little afternoon fishing. Now what would he be doing the rest of the day ? A suspicious package ? This was the country ! Few people ever got packages out here anyways ! Some folks would love to get a package out here ! Any kind of package ! Something to talk about ! He hummed as he drove, reading the directions carefully.

He concluded she must be from the city.

He found the mailbox out at the end of a sparsely -populated road. "Wohlberg" . . . not "Wolberg" ! He was glad he had caught this little error instead of having it come back to haunt him later on. Nothing more embarrassing than a simple spelling mistake. As he turned the Jeep and headed towards the house a black car sped past him at an alarming speed. His first instinct was to do a U-turn and chase it down, but then he thought about it and decided to just forget the dude. Probably wouldn't be able to catch him anyhow with his old, temperamental, county-issued
Jeep. It just wasn't built for speed.

Pulling up to the house, he was startled to see all of the shades pulled down tight. As if nobody wanted anything to do with anyone. Stark ! Weird ! Eerie !

And quiet, very quiet. He got out of the car and slowly made his way to the front door, silently inspecting everything around the porch. And there was the box, right where 911 had said it would be ! About 3 ft. x 4 ft., and about 4 ft. high. Not wrapped in your typical brown paper, but a kind of gray. And no postal stamps or marks of transport. Just a plain white envelope taped to the top, with the name "Anna" printed neatly on it. Strange . . . yes ! Dangerous . . . well it was too soon to say. He needed to talk to the homeowner. As he began to knock on the door with his knuckles, . . . the box began to shake slightly !

Anna heard a knock on the front door; she nervously looked out of the corner of the living room shade. Anna was so anxious! Warily… she said unto him “Please… Identify Yourself!”

As the words were coming out of her mouth she saw the box begin to rattle on it’s own! She quickly withdrew from the window shade; now, if it were possible, Anna was even more frightened than before!

“Please make it go away, please make it go away, please, God, please make it go away!” she whispered repeatedly over and over as she paced back and forth across the floor - trying to calm her own fears. She knew that whatever was in that box was alive or mechanical. Which was it? Why was this happening to her?

The unidentified man on the front porch was in a uniform of sorts? However, Anna failed to get a good look at him before she saw the box shake. By that time all that had happened, all she could see was the backside of the man with his gun drawn… pointed indisputably at the mysterious box on her front porch, that was, Now... Moving!

What the hell was a deputy sheriff doing at her house ?

He had parked far enough away to see but not be seen. Through his binoculars he watched the deputy nose around, saw him discover the box, and watched him as he prepared to knock on the front door. He didn't want this meddling ! He wanted her to suffer at his hands, with no witnesses !

So he had no choice but to blow the package. He flipped the switch as the deputy turned.

Jason only had time to dive over the rail when the box began to explode. He bounced through the bushes, landing on the bottom stair, as blue smoke made its way out of the box and filled the air with the smell of fire. There was a loud popping sound, a sort of coughing wheeze, and thousands of pieces of paper floating in the sky like confetti.

The box had stopped moving but now seemed to be catching fire. Jason immediately grabbed for the hose on the front lawn, turned it on, and doused the box until he was sure that anything burning had drowned.

Cautiously he made his way over to the smoldering package. Inside he discovered electrical wiring and flammables, . . . and . . books ! Paperback books ! Bestselling paperbacks . . by Anna Wohlberg ! The ones on the top had been burned pretty good but the ones on the bottom were like new. Must have been thirty or forty ! And all written by Anna !

Maybe someone didn't like her stories. Just then the door opened.

She was staring at him with big, round, beautiful eyes . . wet eyes . . that searched quickly here and there and finally fixed on the gun in his hand. Her gaze left the gun and went to his face. "Are you from the sheriff's office ?", she asked quietly.
"Yes Ma'am, I'm deputy Burke. Following up on your call about this package here. Hope you're okay."

He watched her as she inched the door open a little further, checking out the front porch and the package. She eyed him again carefully, then said "What are you going to do now deputy, shoot me ?" Quickly he holstered the
gun, not wanting to give her anymore reasons to panic. "No Ma'am, sorry about that. Just hope you don't have other strange packages sitting around here. Never shot a package before, but if I have to I'll blow its damn head
right off, that is, if it has a head !"

She looked at him curiously . . . and then began to laugh. He joined her.

Anna looked at deputy Burke and said, “You know, this kind of stuff only happens in books!”

Now, together they would have to try & piece together the anonymous attack on Anna life. Luckily some of the books hadn’t been blown up; maybe they could be dusted for fingerprints?

Anna wondered what the root cause of this was? Something in one… or all of her books had upset someone enough to try to kill her. Her mind raced through scenarios in the various books she authored.

Meanwhile deputy Burke called for a forensic team to come in and see if they could lift fingerprints, shoe treads or possibly even a tire tread pattern from the black car that had delivered the package. Perhaps additional clues lay about the porch?

The forensic team of investigators was just about to wrap up their collection of samples when Anna pinpointed a certain one of her books that involved a black car. The name of that book was “Island Fire at Dawn” She was certain there was probably no connection, but she gave her statement to deputy Burke about the book she was speaking of. Maybe this was a copycat attempt. In that specific book, the black car also delivered a bomb. In her book the bomb had been fatal to the receiver of a package.

They would both spend the next few days pouring over this particular book looking for clues. For the time being, deputy Burke had assured Anna that she would have an armed squad car on hand 24 hrs a day to guard her house.

Things were better now. The 24-hr. security detail had finally ended. And she was alone again most of the time,
except for that stupid deputy who randomly dropped in to check on her every now and then. But even his visits
became more infrequent.
He watched her everyday now, through the trees. When at last it appeared that she was leaving to do some grocery shopping, he made his move.
He was in and out of her house in twenty minutes flat. Cameras and microphones secretly installed in various
rooms, hidden most of the time in plain sight ! He did take an extra five minutes or so to leave behind a special
surprise for Ms. Wohlberg.
Quickly he exited and drove away in a thin cloud of brown dust, his set-up for phase two ready and waiting.

When Anna returned from the store; she had a bit of an eerie feeling as she entered the house. “This is nuts” she said aloud “You’re just being paranoid!” she repeated to herself.

She quickly put her groceries away, poured herself a glass of iced tea and sat down with that novel of hers, (the one with the black car in it) and her note pad that she had been keeping notes… maybe ‘clues’ is a better word for what she was really doing. They didn’t have much to go on down at the sheriff’s office as whoever had planted the bomb had been very careful not to leave any traces behind other than the reality of the incident.

As she was reading, some things were far too familiar about Ann’s property and the property in the book. Anna had probably even fashioned the house in the novel from her own. Stuff like that wasn’t uncommon for authors to do sometimes.

Note Pad entry – Aside from the ‘black car’ likeness-
#1- the woman who had been killed by the bomb in my novel lived in a home that was very comparable to mine, including a barn & the wooded acreage.

#2 – the pond in my novel is all but indistinguishable to my own- as described, except for painted sign by the pond in the novel that says “Duck Lane”

#3 – the woman in the book had also had a falling out with a younger sibling “a brother” years before her bomb incident…. as have I. In fact the sibling in the novel was the murderer.

Anna’s thoughts kept flashing back to the barn, and a certain passage in her novel. In the barn, a mock up dummy had been made to match the character of the woman who had been killed & hung by the neck from the rafters in the barn. Around the neck of the dummy was a small wood shingle tag some-what likened to a primitive necklace that had been painted with red paint that said “Hung by the neck until Dead”

Anna was getting pretty freaked out, so she decided to place a phone call deputy Burke. Perhaps he would come by and just check in the barn to calm her paranoia regarding the likeness. She believed if nothing was there then she was on the wrong track and this whole ordeal had nothing to do with her novel – but what if something was in the barn?

"The problem with Scotland, was that it was full of Scots!" He repeated the quote again. "The problem with Scotland, was that it was full of Scots!" From some movie he'd seen recently. He couldn't quite remember the title yet, but he was sure it would come to him soon. Thinking along those lines, he began anew. "The problem with
writers, was that they were full of words!" No. "The problem with authors, was that they authored!" No. "The problem with Anna, was that she was Frances!" There, that was it. Anna was the reality, Frances was the fantasy. "The problem with Anna, was that she was Frances!" And he knew he'd have to do something about that real soon. His life depended on it ! Evan Colby returned his gaze to that farm across the pond.

Sheriff Bill Johnstone looked over at his future replacement and figured it was time to harrass him again. "Your girlfriend called again, asking if you might stop by later on to discuss some issues."

"She's not my girlfriend Bill, so lay off !" " She's just a nice woman looking for a little peace and quiet."
"She's a nice looking woman looking for a piece . . . and what ?"

"Can it Bill. Isn't it enough that I'm doing all your investigations and leg-work?" "Now you're beating me up?"

"You're right JB, I'm sorry . . give her a call. I'm heading home and outta here."

The phone rang and she hurried to pick it up, hoping it was Jason returning her call.

"Hello?"

"I'm still watching you."

"Who is this?"

"I can see you Anna."

She ran over and began pulling the shades down in earnest. She gasped ! On the back of each shade was a
different word , written in what looked like red lipstick. Her lipstick ! It said . . . from left to right . . . NOW IS THE
TIME TO DIE ! BURN IN HELL ! HANGMAN"S NOOSE FOR YOU!

When Anna saw the sadistic message on her window shades, she began to cry hysterically. Never before had anything frightened her so terribly, sure everyone has scary things that happen to them here and there; but never anything on this magnitude. Someone had been inside her house.

She truly felt like a caged animal that was being taunted ahead of slaughter. She needed to run… however; she was both equally afraid to stay in the house, as she was to run out the front door to her car. She needed to run away from this place. She needed to run for her own safety. Someone was watching her! and for all she knew – that someone might even still be inside of her house?

Anna did what she always does when something is/was troubling her …she turned on her stereo and blasted The Cranberries CD then crawled into a corner in the living room. At least she would see someone coming at her if anyone was in the house. The corner was the safest place to be until she got up the nerve to bolt. Listening to the Cranberries had always had somewhat of a mental boosting power for her. She always called that her pump music. Her pump music would thrust into her psyche giving her the guts to get the hell out of there!

At this point, there was no need to dial 9-1-1. She was far enough from town that it would take at least 20 minutes to get to her and that was only if the cops were hauling ass! She was all alone; she was screwed. Only Anna could save Anna right now.

A few songs into the CD, Anna’s happy song started playing; she purposefully stood up knowing that it was Now or Never… she grabbed her purse and with her keys in hand… she ran for the car as fast as she could never bothering to turn off the music, never bothering to shut the front door.

As she ran to the car panting for air, just above her breath she anxiously sang “it was just my imagination…just my imagination…just my imagination” she got into her car & peeled the hell out of that long driveway!! Just like that…. Anna was gone!

Thank God she had just filled the car with gas earlier that day, she could go a long way on one tank of gas.

Anna drove stupidly for about thirty minutes when she realized that she didn’t know where to go or what to do? She didn’t have a plan! Fortunately, she had just enough discretion in her thought process to dig into her purse for the phone number that deputy Burke had given to her and make the phone call. Her hand shook uncontrollably as she dialed the sheriff’s office.

Burke answered the call. He was startled by the sheer panic in Anna’s voice.
She rambled on so fast about some lipstick? “BURN IN HELL?” something or other? and something about “I can see you.”

All of her words were so fragmented, held back by her sobs of broken speech, that he couldn’t piece anything together.

Jason knew something terrible must have happened, but to be quite honest, she was so irrational right now that he feared she might get herself into an accident. He gathered just enough information to know that she was terrified to be in her own house right now... that she was just driving around trying to figure out what she should do. So far, that was all he could figure out. He needed to find her, and he needed to find her fast.

“I’m so scared” she mumbled. Nervously jerking back and forth looking over her shoulder… watching through her wing and rear-view mirrors worried and wondering if anyone was following her. She was more than a bit paranoid and rightfully so. She had just cause to mistrust everything at this point. Someone was trying to kill her!

Jason asked Anna what her location was? He said he would drive to her, and then follow her back to the station; Anna flat-out refused to stop and wait for him someplace.

She cried out, “I’m too scared to stop! Don’t you understand? I can’t stop someplace and wait for you. I CAN’T do that!!”

Burke powerfully told Anna - “Calm Down Anna! Do you hear me? Calm down! I want you to be careful Anna. I’m afraid you may have an accident if you don’t settle down.”

Burke pleaded with her. He didn’t want to see anything happen to her, not on his watch.

Slowly, and very softly Jason said, “I want you to drive towards the station. I will start driving towards you, OK- Anna. Do you understand me Anna?” he paused between statements, choosing his word carefully he said, "I Will protect you Anna! Please trust that Anna...OK? I AM going to protect you... I need you to drive to me, please... Anna?"

Anna acknowledged that she understood Jason’s plea. “Yes… humph - humph, I will turn around, but please, hurry!” Anna could not control her tears. Promptly, although carefully, Anna turned the car around, heading back towards town.

Headed back to town now, and with the deputy on his way to meet her, Anna regained her composure and her confidence and began to talk to herself out loud, telling herself to take long,deep breaths, and to exhale slowly. She began to count to five . . . and then to ten . . . feeling her chest adjust to the rhythmic movements once again.
Inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale. She had to admit it was working ! Inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . JESUS . . she just missed a head-on collision with some a**hole . . JESUS . . she swerved to the right . . .
went up onto the bank . . . JESUS . . . turned the wheel as hard as she could . . . and slammed on the brakes!

The car stalled, and everything became very quiet. Sitting there holding on to the steering wheel like it was about to fight back she tried to look around to see what may have happened to the other vehicle. In her rear view mirror she saw the car maybe forty feet behind her, stopped in a cloud of dust and brakelights, it too apparently stalled. She saw no movement. Maybe they had had a heart attack ! She felt a sudden urge to try to help the poor soul, whoever they may be. Freeing herself from the steering wheel, she reached down and turned the key off and with one solid push she had her car door open and was in the process of stepping out when the other car
fired up suddenly and U-turned right up behind her. It didn't stop ! The black car plowed right into hers, knocking her back into the drivers seat. Backing up, the black car stopped, shifted gear and again came at her. She was barely able to close the door before it smashed along the whole driver's side, effectively sealing it closed forever.
She thought about climbing over and exiting the passenger side but she didn't think she'd have enough time. Again the car rammed into her, and she banged her head into the rear view mirror, destroying it completely and
continuing on into the windshield where she hit so hard cracks instantly appeared from nowhere! Warm blood now streamed down onto her shoulders and chest. Another crashing sound . . and she passed out.

It was like coming out of a bad dream ! Part of you wanted out quickly. But the other part of you wanted to stay and kick some ass, to settle things . . . so maybe the nightmares would stop. After all, it was YOUR bad dream, wasn't it ? That's how Anna felt as she regained consciousness. She fought to sit upright. It was strangely quiet again, the ramming no longer taking place! The other car was no where in sight. She touched her fingers to her head, wincing as they came away covered in dark red. She had to get herself to a hospital ! Frantically she reached for the keys, her shaking so violent that at first she couldn't even turn them. On the third try she managed to control her anger and the car's engine started up. She slammed it into drive and headed back down the road ! The car, damaged extensively, could only putter along at a measly 45 mph top speed, but at least she was getting the hell out of there !

He hoped she was driving towards him as he had asked her. Jason stepped on it even more until he was at 70 mph.
As he topped the long rise he could see the smoke billowing from the crashed car. Thick, oily, gray and blue smoke spiraling up into the sky. The vehicle was pulled over to the side of the road, and looking down on it Jason saw no one around. Maybe they were still in the car.
As he made his way directly across from the inferno and stopped, he was surprised to see Anna's car come rolling up behind the black car and jerk to a stop.
"Stay away from that damn car ", she screamed. "It's the black car . . that black car". "I ought to finish them off damn-it, I ought to finish them off !"
Jason looked at Anna through the broken glass and blood. "Oh Anna, what have you done ?"

Anna tried to answer as she slipped away into unconsciousness.