#SnippetSunday - Professor of Lies

Welcome to Snippet Sunday. Below is a snippet from my Kindle Vella novel, Professor of Lies. Kindle Vella is a way to read short episodes on your cell phone or Kindle Fire. You can read the first three episodes of any Kindle Vella story for free. After that, you have to pay a small fee with tokens to unlock subsequent episodes, but this gives you the opportunity to check out an author’s writing style before committing. Anyway, here’s a snippet from Episode five.

With the engine and music silenced, there was no mistaking the problem. The hissing sound wasn’t coming from an angry rattlesnake—it was coming from the vehicle’s back tire. As she listened to the life draining from the inner tube, she wanted to break down and cry.

“Damn it! Didn’t this evening suck enough already?” she screamed into the dark night.

Megan kicked the slowly deflating tire until her toe throbbed, and she cursed again. After several more strings of profanity, she regained her composure and dug her small flashlight out of the glove compartment. She seldom cursed, but she could think of few worse situations to be in than the one she was in at the moment—stranded on a deserted highway well after midnight.

She walked to the back of the vehicle to retrieve the jack and lug wrench, tools she had hoped to never use. Holding the flashlight between her teeth, she was able to direct enough light to the spot in which she needed to work. She popped off the hard-sided spare tire cover and gasped, spitting her flashlight to the ground. Cursing the empty space behind the cover, she quickly retrieved her light before it rolled out into the highway.

Megan got back into the Jeep and sat behind the wheel, trying to decide what to do, and lamenting the fact she had never bothered to look behind the spare tire cover when she bought the vehicle. Retrieving her cell phone from her purse, she saw she was in a spot that had no service. There were many dead spots on her route home, and she was in one of them.

Digging out her tennis shoes from underneath the seat, she laced them up. If she couldn’t change the tire, she’d have to hike home or at least to a spot with cell phone coverage. Just as Megan reached for the door handle, an approaching set of headlights began slowing down.

The car pulled in, facing her, and turned on its hazard lights. The small two-door car had seen better days. Its early 2000’s age and dented appearance did little to ease her building apprehension.

Her earlier exhaustion vanished as adrenaline coursed through her body. She took in every detail of the car and the man emerging from it. Ever since Mike’s disappearance, her observation skills had sharpened. She now cataloged faces which enabled her to spot the FBI agents who had followed her regularly at first and who continued to check up on her sporadically. She doubted this was an FBI agent, but until she was sure of his intent, she would stay alert to every detail.

The tall man approached her vehicle. He was lean with broad shoulders and a confident stride. He was dressed in khaki slacks, a snug black crewneck t-shirt, and a sports jacket. He had dark thick hair, a thin straight mustache, and a closely cropped beard. There was nothing threatening about him, yet Megan’s pulse refused to slow.

She had dreaded finding herself in this situation—late at night on an empty highway with no way to defend herself or call for help. But, at the moment she needed assistance, and the man looked respectable. She gripped her flashlight like it was a police baton and emerged from her vehicle to face the stranger.

To check out the other episodes on Kindle Vella, visit https://www.amazon.com/Professor-Lies-Renegades-Redemption-Book/dp/B0BPYNQQY9/