Date Published: September 1, 2020
Publisher: Crazy 8 Press
Angela Hardwicke isn’t just any private eye. She’s a PI from Eternity, the cosmic realm responsible for the design, creation, and maintenance of the Universe.
When accountant Gil Haberseau hires her to find an intern with stolen corporate files, Hardwicke soon finds herself embroiled in a deadly case of lies, intrigue, and murder, clashing with vengeful gangsters, MinderNot rallies, and a madman who’s come a long way to get what he wants.
In Russ Colchamiro’s thrilling Sci-Fi mystery Crackle and Fire, Angela Hardwicke learns once and for all that when it comes to being an intergalactic private eye, there’s no telling what threats she may face on-realm and off… including the demons that lurk deep within her soul.
Bonus story included! The AI-themed Angela Hardwicke murder mystery, “The Case of Jarlo’s Buried Treasure”
EXCERPT
Gil surprises me. I
just assumed we were headed to the Breslin, Anders & Li headquarters. I had
an ulterior motive. I wanted to case the joint, see how I might sneak back in
later.
Instead
we shoot across town, to the Nova District. Gil leads us into Dante’s Pizzeria,
then flicks his eyes at the aproned guy behind the counter.
Without
a word, counter guy buzzes us through a steel door in back, that leads down a
flight of stairs, then through a hallway drenched in the aroma of hot pizza and
fresh garlic knots.
Gil slides back an accordion gate,
which opens into a narrow elevator with copper plates. He punches in a series
of raised buttons on the wall mount and pulls on a mechanical lever. Rather
than descend farther into the basement, the elevator rotates 180 degrees, then
opens into a small room with chipped brown walls. We approach the door adjacent
to us.
Gil
holds his ID tag up to—I’m not sure where the surveillance camera is—but there’s
a buzzer. The door opens in.
Gil surprises me again. With all
this cloak and dagger I expect a room filled with high-tech gadgetry, including
buttons, lights, and a team of engineers milling about. Instead there’s one
guy—late-20s, plump, glasses, bowl haircut with shaggy bangs—sitting behind a drafting
table with no drawers. The room is well-lit, with peach walls, various plants,
a blue sofa, white coffee table with books, magazines, and 3-D tablets on top,
and a window view of the sun sparkling off the ocean.
The
seascape is a hologram—we’re deep inside the bowels of this building—but I can’t
tell the view from the real thing.
If
I didn’t know any better, I’d think we’re in the waiting room of a boutique
travel agency. Maybe we are.
“Clancy,” Gil says. “How’s it hanging?”
“Low as my left toe,” Clancy says
without looking up from the screen.
“I hear ya. Listen, Clance, I gotta
new recruit. Need to see if she can handle the jump. Mind if she goes? You know
how it is. Newbies.”
“Love to help, Gil, but I’m kinda
busy.”
I’m
not sure watching intergalactic parkour constitutes as busy, although I get the appeal. It is pretty cool.
“Sure, sure,” Gil says. “But Dino
just pulled out a fresh pie. Pepperoni and olives.”
Clancy looks up. “I’m listening.”
“Now that I think about it… extra olives. Extra pepperoni. Extra
mozzarella.”
“Aaaand…?” Clancy leads, raising his
voice. His eyes follow.
“Grape soda. Extra-large. Pie’s
waiting.”
“You got twenty minutes. Then I need
the room.”
I wait until Clancy leaves. “This is the way to Earth? Come on.”
“Don’t be fooled. Clancy’s a
top-flight technician. And what you see,” Gil says, “isn’t always what you get.”
He
sits down at the keyboard, punches in a code. There’s a hum, a whir, and a
series of vibrations. A glass chamber unfolds from the wall.
“That’s clever.”
“We’ll see. In you go.”
“Twenty minutes isn’t enough time,
Gil. It might take a while.”
He waves me off. “You can be there a
minute, a day, a month, or a year. Doesn’t matter. But whenever you come back,
it’ll be like you never left. You’ll be back faster than I can blink.”
“All right, then,” I say, not
convinced his timeline will play out as he’s purporting. Only one way to find
out. “Let’s do it.”
Gil approaches. He’s standing close.
Too close. He reaches up to my left ear, his breath hot on my neck. Instinctively,
I grab his wrist. “What’cha doing there, Gil?”
“I
need to place this tracker behind your ear. All you have to do is tap it once,
and no matter where you are on Earth, what’s happening at the time, or how long
you’ve been gone, it’ll instantly transport you back into the chamber, to this
very moment. It’s how it works.”
The
last time I had Gil in my grip, he was frightened. Now it barely fazes him.
Maybe I’m losing my touch. Or maybe he’s getting used to me. I release his
hand. “Go ahead,” I say. On the tip of his finger he presses what looks like a
contact lens behind my left ear. I feel it dissolve under my skin.
“It’s
in,” he says.
Gil
sits back behind the terminal. He gestures for me to enter the chamber. I do.
He punches in a series of commands.
“It’s
called a Cressa tab. This will send you to Earth, to Arthur’s house. You’ll
arrive no more than one minute after I brought him to Eternity. I can’t send
you back before or during my recruitment of Hanson. It’s VCP protocol. We can’t
interfere with that timeline or it initiates an automatic lockdown and pulls
you right out. But when you arrive there, he will have just left.”
“Got
it. How will I know if”—I’m now standing in Hanson’s living room—“it worked?”
About the Author
Russ Colchamiro is also the author of the rollicking sci-fi adventure, Crossline, the zany sci-fi/fantasy backpacking series Finders Keepers, Genius de Milo, and Astropalooza, editor of the sci-fi-themed mystery anthology Love, Murder & Mayhem, and co-author and co-editor of Murder in Montague Falls, a noir-inspired collection of novellas.
Russ is also the creator and host of Russ’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster podcast, where he has interviewed several NY Times and USA Today best-selling sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery authors. Russ has also contributed short stories to more than a dozen sci-fi and fantasy anthologies.
He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.
For more on Russ and Russ’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster, visit www.russcolchamiro.com, follow him on Twitter and Instagram @AuthorDudeRuss, ‘like’ his Facebook author page www.facebook.com/RussColchamiroAuthor, and watch his podcast on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUb7MDUNQxyVRBDOTVEqOaw
Contact Links
Twitter: @authorduderuss
Instagram: @authorduderuss
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