I am participating in the virtual blog tour for Gone At Zero Hundred Hours 00:00 Today.
Blurb.
"Their lives are in the hands of two 18 year-olds..."
Sydney Marie McSwain - a tomboy who yearned for a father.
Cody Beck - a wannabe filmmaker, wisenheimer and flirt.
Jaden White - the star who led the high school hockey team to two championships, and was now on the A-list for NHL scouts.
Sydney Marie McSwain loves her mom, Anna - a private investigator in the coastal city where they live - but they had a major issue between them. Anna refused to give Sydney the identity of her father. On the day of her high school graduation, they were battling it out, once again. An hour later, Sydney, Cody and Jaden were at the local café, and watched as Anna was gunned down.
Faced with immediate responsibility, Sydney and Cody agreed to take over the agency, only they changed the name to McSwain & Beck. At the same time, Sydney convinced Sutter Beach Detective, Ace Carter, to help her track down her father.
Then out of the blue, a model walked in and hired them to follow her step-brother. While Cody was busy editing a trailer to solicit new clients, Sydney settled into her lemon-yellow pickup to do surveillance, and wound up staking out a secret club called The Devil’s Door whose suspicious members wore the tattoo of a devil.
That same night, Sydney received a call from one of her mom’s former clients, but the client was gunned down at the location where they agreed to meet. The mysterious discovery of a DVD revealed the possibility that teenagers were being abducted, only nobody reported them missing.
On the hunt for the victims, McSwain & Beck were chased by men in ski masks, nearly gunned down by a members of a drug cartel called the outlaws, Sydney’s precious pickup was broken into; then the step-brother they were hired to follow, was found dead and Sydney was the number one suspect.
If things weren’t bad enough already, they had to figure out how to crash a red-carpet Mardi Gras bash being held on a private cruise ship, before it sailed off into the sunset, where they just might meet the devil, himself.
Now, the clock was ticking…
And time was running out…
How was she ever going to find her father, now?
Excerpt.
Then, a guy who called himself, J.C., pulled up to the firehouse on a juiced up Harley
Davidson claiming to be her attorney.I met up with him outside when I heard the sound of the
exhaust. He took off his skull and bones helmet, and followed me into the firehouse wearing a
leather vest and a pair of chaps. I thought he looked more like a member of the Sons of Anarchy,
and found myself wondering if he wore his get up when he faced a judge in court.
"As I said on the phone", he started as he followed me inside.
"I was hired by your mother to take care of her personal affairs". He glanced around the firehouse with admiration; then offered
a handshake to Jaden and Cody who were there for support.
In the old days, the fire trucks sat in the bay just inside the firehouse garage doors. Now, it
was where my mom set up the office. There was a desk with chairs, a wall of filing cabinets, and
a mechanical bull-riding machine. Yes, you read that right, a bull-riding machine. One thing my
mom and I did like to do together I was check out the local flea markets. You could find the
coolest things. My mom said the mechanical bull was better than a treadmill any day. A couple
minutes a day and you were sure to wind up with six-pack abs. She bought it and I was hooked.
To the right, there was a locker room cluttered with old turnout gear, fire boots and helmets
that were left over from volunteer firemen. A small dispatch office with an alarm box sat just
inside the front door, and a set of stairs led to the second floor - the living quarters.
J.C. pulled a stack of papers out of a leather satchel then we all sat around the desk. For the
next hour, he read through the contents of my mom's will, and informed me of my financial
responsibilities from now on. He also confirmed something I knew, but had never seen the
physical proof - until now.
My mom received a cashier's check from an 'unknown individual' on the first of every month. He said the checks would continue until I turned twenty - one. I knew they were from my father, but I still couldn't understand why his identity
was such a big secret.
Listening to J.C. ramble on and on about my new responsibilities, I wanted to crawl into bed,
pull the covers over my head and dream it all away, but that wasn't an option. I had to grow up,
and fast.
Long ago, so the storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion over all and drove the world to war. Now the one talisman keeping this sinister force from seizing power has been disturbed—and no one will be safe. . . .
