Ruby

Excerpt from Que Sera, Sera - Women's Adventure Novel - 85,000 words

Chapter 4 - The Charge

The boar was rabid and poised to make his mindless attack. 

Let him kill us. That’s what we really want, isn’t it? 

Suzannah couldn’t answer that question with complete certainty. Not being able to answer it with an unequivocal yes gave her a glimmer of hope. Maybe there was still a little fight and life left in her after all. 

She lunged at the wild pig with the juniper limb and sliced the air just inches from his inflamed, red snout. He did not budge. His tusks, growing sloppily out of the sides of his whiskered face, were razor sharp hooks. Yellow suds spewed from his mouth. He took another step forward. 

Dear Jesus, what is that hanging from its belly?  

At first, she thought it was his penis but on closer examination she could see that the body part was hoofed. 

It's an extra leg. This pig has five legs. 

Nick’s favorite number was 5. His birthday was May 5, 1975. Lucky number 5, and Senpai Nick was one lucky bastard. 

The pig’s fifth limb only brushed the earth, but Suzannah could see that it functioned independently from the others. She watched as the center foot frantically reached for the ground and propelled the beast forward. She felt every ounce of her courage pack up and flee, and stumbled a few terrified steps backwards. He shook his fierce-looking head and she glanced at his knifed, asymmetrical teeth but she couldn’t pry her focus from that fifth center leg. His own thin, wiry hair stood on end as he stretched his long, greasy neck upward and sniffed pleasingly. She knew that he could smell her fear. She stank of fear – not to mention the blood, shit and piss of humans. The fifth foot got a good hold in the dry, sandy terrain and kicked its captive forward. 

“Z! Z!”

Nick called for her. She hated it when he called her Z. It had been endearing enough, that first night when she requested that they not exchange names.

“Run! Z Run now!” 

He insisted they share one letter – any letter in their first name. He had eagerly turned over his N. Nothing else had entered her brain except “Nick.” He was so thoroughly a Nick. He had seemed harmless enough and since she planned to never see him again, she had offered him her Z. He wouldn’t stop sputtering names like an excited contestant on the Wheel of Fortune. He kept spinning that wheel. Zoe, Zena, even Zora had been among his guesses. Finally, after their fourth straight romp beneath the sheets, he had whispered breathlessly: “Suzannah.” It meant something to her, at the time, that he’d guessed and spoken aloud her given name. Even by then, a name which no one in 25 years had called her. It was a name which she did not especially like, in most part because it made her feel uncomfortable that she did not especially like her own name. 

The boar’s fifth leg was coming for her. She was about to have her face shredded by 100 kilos of pentapedal infernal swine. 

 El Cinco, that’s what I’m naming you.

Chapter 5 - Forged in Steel 

Spain. We’re in the south of Spain, remember? 

Bits were coming back to Vesta. Her eyelids fluttered. She’d knocked her head hard when she had fallen, and someone had picked her up and carried her to the shade of a pagoda. She yawned her eyes open and looked around. She thought the pagoda looked out of place in Spain, even if it was at a yoga center. 

Architecture expert, are we now? 

Just saying. 

And I’m just saying it’s past time to get our ass out of here.

She’d come here to find out why the Australian guy who had hired her as the chef for his private party had also recently popped up in her family tree in her 23andMe ancestry report. The report. Where was her backpack? Her knives – she could not lose those knives. She must find her knives. Her vision blurred and she closed her eyes again. 

Footsteps. Someone was walking towards her. She couldn’t lift her head, her long locs, filthy from the dust, stuck to her sweaty shoulders, neck, and face. More footsteps. She heard a woman’s or maybe it was a man’s husky, breathy voice. The footsteps retreated. They had to belong to HER. The crazy-eyed cleaning woman who had been standing in the middle of the compound laughing hysterically when Vesta arrived. The woman had spoken to Vesta, but she’d heard nothing because her ears had been ringing and her head felt like it was going to explode from the heat. 

Where was Nick? If the woman would just go get Nick, the owner of the yoga center, and apparently a new branch in her family tree, all of this would be settled. 

“Ick,” She called. “Ick.” 

What the fuck? Her Ns and Ds weren’t working. She ran through the alphabet aloud – anything that involved the tongue touching the roof of her mouth or back of her teeth was out of order. 

What happened to my tongue? 

“There!” She heard the woman’s voice this time and Vesta felt warm water splash over her. Her cracked lips pried themselves open to receive hydration, but the thick droplets tasted like dirty mop water and her lips and eyes snapped closed. 

She wiped the dirty water from her face and opened her eyes again and looked into the blue eyes of the mad woman standing above her. A storm swept lithely through the woman’s eyes and suddenly, Vesta felt safe as the woman took hold of her and helped her to her feet. Almost to her feet. She sat back down on the pagoda. 

Words spilled out of the woman’s mouth, and Vesta tried to focus. 

“Ambulance?”

Vesta shook her head no. 

“Be ok?” 

Vesta nodded. 

“Be back. Water.”
The old woman plodded away. 

“Eua. Augua,” Vesta said, relieved to have squeezed at least two correct words out of her mangled mouth. Her tongue was useless. She must have bitten it when she fell. Fresh blood dotted her lips and when she closed them again and sucked together and closed like a vacuum sealed bag ready for the sous-vide. Vesta tried to push herself up, but she could not. 

Better to stay still and rest. It’s ok, the old lady is cool. 

That woman is two days away from a mental ward.

Nah, we just surprised her is all. She’s harmless. 

Just watch our back, K? 

Soon, the old woman returned and gently placed a cool compress to Vesta’s blistered, vaccum-sealed lips. She felt for her phone and found it but it, like all of her, had overheated and turned off. Fuck, the battery on her smart watch was dead. Where was her backpack? Her passport, her credit cards were all in that pack. And her chef knives. She couldn’t lose those knives. 

“My backpack,” Vesta said legibly but still made the motion of pulling on a backpack. The woman, who Vesta by now had decided wasn’t a threat but was very slow in the head, walked over to the beat-up backpack on the ground. Yes! Vesta nodded. 

The woman was too weak to pick up the backpack, so she started dragging it. 

That’s ok, granny. Drag it. Drag it on over and then go get this Nick so I can tell him why I’m really here. 

But Vesta knew that she was in no verbal, physical or emotional condition to present the report right now to Nick. That could come later, after a long cold shower, an ice pack to her lips and to her torched forehead, and a change of clothes. 

You mean we’re staying? 

Can you not smell us? 

A shower, fresh clothes and then we’re out. 

Vesta clapped as she watched the mentally challenged cleaning woman drag her backpack across the hard rocky ground. Good job old girl! You’re almost here.

Then, the dragging caused a tear in the bag and one of Vesta’s knives tumbled onto the ground. Vesta hoped the blade hadn’t been nicked. She’d just had those sharpened in Madrid last week. She watched the woman pick up the knife and examine it. 

Yeah, nice, isn’t it? Now put it down and get that bag over here so I can get my ears back online. 

The woman looked at her again and even from several feet away, Vesta saw the storm return in the old woman’s eyes. It was like the shutter of camera closing and ccchhhkk, a new person was in the frame. The crazy eyeballs were right back in the game, folks!

The woman pressed a pointer finger to her own thin, fading lips and moved them to the Ssshhh position. 

No, no, no. Oh God, please no! 

Vesta tried to scream but only panicked and shook her head desperately. The woman charged forward with her stormy eyes and the tip of the blade aimed straight at Vesta’s head. 

This crazy old white bitch is going to chop me to pieces with my own fucking knife.  

Que Serà, Serà

STORY STATEMENT: 

An aging, retired con artist tries to reclaim the family jewels that were ripped from her decades ago.  

THE ANTAGONIST: 

Frankie Aces was the greatest female con artist of her time. You name it, she stole it. She took in a 16-year-old orphaned girl to collect foster care payments, forged a birth certificate to make the girl 12 so she could collect payments longer, renamed the girl Sugar, and trained her  as an accomplice; she signed up Sugar and other young women for paid medical trials (she kept the dough) and never disclosed to the women exactly what the trials were for; she is now 85 years old and writing under the pen Wallie Kingsman. Her best-selling novel series "Sugar the Lady Gangster" is based on Suzannah’s real life who she used, abused and stole everything from in their 25-year relationship. For extra dickery, she made Sugar the antagonist in her books while she wrote herself as "Ruthie" the heroic, loving, selfless mother figure. 

SECONDARY ANTAGONIST: 

“The Father” – a geneticist and pioneer in assisted reproduction. He ran a “faith-based” NGO that was the front for a human trafficking operation. The Father and his council ran medical trials in Madrid to harvest eggs from unknowing young women and then sold them to the highest bidders around the world. Frankie Aces worked in the Father’s operation for several years. The Father is still alive at 95, living in a luxury villa in Malaga and still using disadvantaged women to propel his genetic and human reproduction experiments. 

 BREAKOUT TITLE: 

Que Serà, Serà

Will I be Pretty, Will I be Rich? 

Sugar's Family Jewels  

COMPARABLES: 

Woman of a Certain Rage by Georgia Hall

If Tomorrow Comes by Sydney Sheldon 

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

 LOGLINE: 

A new shot at revenge is the only thing keeping an aging, retired con artist from taking her own miserable life. 

PROTAGONIST INNER CONFLICT:

Old scars, traumatic memories, and regret haunt Suzannah. At 63, she discovers that her 85-year-old ruthless, abusive, and conning foster mother is still alive and has become wildly rich and successful writing a series of novels based on Suzannah’s real life. Suzannah is going to kill the old woman and take back everything that was stolen from her. 

PROTAGONIST’S SECONDARY CONFLICT: Before Suzannah can get down to the business of brutally murdering her former boss, a young chef named Vesta arrives at the yoga center. Secrets, danger and misunderstandings abound!  Suzannah and Vesta will discover that Frankie Aces ties them all together. 

SETTING: 

The story is set in Andalusia in the South of Spain land of flamenco, mystery, romance and really fucking hot sun. The story begins at the Las Almas yoga center, near Tarifa, that Suzannah, an American, and her much younger and hunky Australian yoga guru boyfriend Nick, established twenty years ago. When she finds out that Frankie is still alive and living in Spain, Suzannah must return to her former stomping grounds in nearby Costa del Sol, ground zero for the rich, powerful, and unscrupulous.

EXCERPT SETTING AS CHARACTER 

By then, dawn was breaking and Suzannah saw where they were. They were nowhere. There had been nothing here. No bungalow, no bunkhouse, no garden, no solar panels, no latrine, no pagoda. There had not yet been wind turbines on those hills where she and Frankie had marooned the cadaver. No yoga compound. Suzannah spotted a solitary tree, walked to it, and touched its lovely, twisted trunk. To the west was the Atlantic with its sapphire blue cape draped from Punta de Tarifa, the southernmost point of continental Europe, to the African coast. To the east a kilometer or so, was a camp with its firelight burning against the backdrop of the rising sun. Figures huddled around the waving flames. Music - oh the music. The people, they were still called gypsies then, sang with such passion and anguish. That was real flamenco. Not the carefully orchestrated hit lists they tried to pass off in Sevilla, worse Madrid, or the worst, Barcelona, as “una auténtica fiesta flamenca!” Their poems swept over the morning desert and drove a stake through her soul into the dusty, rocky earth beneath her feet. “You’re ours now,” the hills of Andalusia whispered. “Veng."