Travis Starnes

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 13

“You have a phone call,” Mom said Monday morning as I came out of the bathroom after my shower. “Nothing bad happened.”

The last part was probably because she could see the look on my face. In my limited experience so far, early morning calls were rarely for something positive. The last one had my dad using his one phone call from jail following the bar fight where he’d stabbed a man to death.

“Hello?” I said, taking the phone from her.

“Charlie, it’s Arthu...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 12

After the game, Coach kept his admonitions to a minimum, saying we’d talk about it tomorrow like I guessed, and sent us to get cleaned up. It was still pretty early and I’d planned for this ahead of time with Hanna and Kat, who’d been up in the stands watching. They’d ridden together and were waiting for me outside the locker room exit when I got out.

“That could have gone better,” Hanna said as we piled into the car.

“No kidding. We got in our heads and almost blew ...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 11

There were no more major issues with Aaron for the next week, and Mr. Eaves had been good on his word. He and Mom had a long conversation Saturday before she went to work. I wasn’t allowed to attend, but afterward, she said she’d agreed to let him fight the case. She was clearly still worried that we’d lose and it’d wreck us financially, but he’d managed to convince her to do it anyways. That alone made me feel better about our chances, since Mom was the most stubborn person I’d e...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 10

Over the weekend I followed Mr. French’s advice and slipped one of my new songs into our setlist. I’d already started brainstorming more songs, since I needed to get a bunch more written and didn’t have a ton of time to do it, but he’d also said I’d need to work them out a bit in front of a crowd to get them really ready. I didn’t want to have to play a bunch of new songs all at once, which meant I needed to start playing the stuff I had now, if I wanted to get them more or less l...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 9

Monday, Mr. French was worked up when he met me at my classroom to accompany me from my Enlgish class. He was practically vibrating as I came out of the classroom and we started walking towards the cafeteria so I could pick up my lunch.

“You okay?” I asked, giving him a concerned look.

“I’ve got amazing news. Saturday, a friend of mine I knew from the old days gave me a call. When I knew him, he was just starting out in the record industry, mostly handing small regional ba...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 15

“So that’s where we think he’s hiding,” Taylor said, summing up everything they’d learned so far.

Gathered in the commander’s office were Lt. Colonel Simmons, Chenier, and Inspector Davis. Although word had started leaking out to the soldiers of at least a basic outline of what had happened, the army had decided to still keep everything as close to the vest as possible. Taylor wasn’t sure that was going to be possible, considering they’d shortly have several hundred men ...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 14

The sergeant hadn’t been exaggerating when he said it was out in the desert. He lead them, Chenier, and some conscripted soldiers from one of the training units several miles out into the desert, eventually ending at a series of poorly camouflaged pits containing a variety of crates and containers. Of course, this far out in the middle of nowhere, poorly camouflaged was still hard to see until you were on top of it, which explains why no one ever stumbled on it.

They’d brought the s...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 13

It took time to get everyone together and on the phone. Lt. Colonel Simmons didn’t like being kept in the dark but quieted down when Taylor explained who else needed to be in on the conversation. It was one thing to be thrown into sudden command several steps above your pay grade and another thing altogether to hear you have to talk to a four-star general. Shortly before they had everyone on the line, Davis also showed up, but kept quiet, which was a surprise. His appearance however did kee...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 8

The next day I was sitting in Mr. French’s office again, eating lunch and talking about music, when we both jerked up at the sound of a knock at his office door. Neither of us had heard the main door to the choir room open and we were caught off guard.

I was surprised to see Kat standing there, balanced on one foot with the other hooked around her ankle, grasping her hands in front of her again. I recognized the body language. It was one of the things she did when she was working up t...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 12

Taylor was still coughing from smoke when Chenier ran up. The fire was mostly out, but it would be hours before everything cooled enough to investigate the scene.

Waving off the medic who was checking him out, Taylor said, “I want the base locked down. No one comes or goes. I also want some of your men to do a sweep of the fence, all the way around, just in case they’ve found another way in or out. If you need manpower, use men from the unit that’s about to rotate out, no one stat...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 11

“So, how do we go about catching both the thieves and your serial killer?” Whitaker asked as they pulled up to their temporary housing.

Walking in, Taylor dropped his go bag on his cot and turned back to Whitaker, answering her question.

“We start investigating them as two separate things. That’s one of the places where we’ve been making a mistake and why this has dragged out. Now that we aren’t trying to reconcile the crimes together, we should be able to make some he...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 7

I’d decided not to say anything to Mom about Chef helping until I knew something concrete. She’d be pissed when she found out I’d disobeyed her specific instructions, so I needed to have a real solution ready to show her it wasn’t just about disobeying her. Staying quiet wasn’t easy as I watched her get her stuff together to go to work, clearly still upset about everything.

Normally after she left I practiced my guitar or worked on writing songs, but I found I couldn’t do ei...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 10

Not all of the families were cooperative. The parents of the second victim didn’t want to talk to them. In small towns like this, gossip traveled fast. They’d heard there were people from the army investigating the murders and clearly held a grudge against the military for denying their involvement for so long.

Taylor tried to convince them that they were taking it seriously now, but two of the families took one look at the army-issued car they were driving and refused to even speak...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 9

Taylor stood over the sheriff, looking down at her crumpled body, while Whitaker stepped outside to call her deputies and let them know what had happened. The cause of death was fairly obvious and unfortunately all too familiar at this point. Although her head was turned to the side, Taylor could still see the dark red slash across her neck.

Taylor had dealt with a lot of law enforcement over the last few years and he thought he was getting pretty good at judging their quality. She may ...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 8

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Whitaker said grumpily as they drove back to the base.

They’d spent almost four hours in the sheriff’s office as she went over all of the murders in her jurisdiction during the last three years, even the two that the Army had taken responsibility for. One was clearly not connected at all, the result of a bar brawl that got out of hand. Even though they’d already convicted someone for that murder, the sheriff said she wanted to show them everyt...

Quick Programing Note

I've been trying to maintain writing a chapter at least once every 2 to 3 days to hit deadlines of finishing the next Taylor book by Aug. 15th and the next Country Roads book before Christmas (although I'm pushing it to get try and get it done before thanksgiving).  That pace continues, but I am traveling for my day job this week and have very limited internet access, which means there will likely be no chapters published until next Monday (the 9th).  I will continue to write this w...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 7

After giving the body and scene a thorough once over with Chenier, Whitaker declared she had what she needed, and he could take over the scene. When it came to this kind of thing, she was the expert, so Taylor didn’t question her. The body didn’t have a lot to tell them, in his opinion, since they knew whoever did it was the same person who’d done the others. He was confident that meant they’d leave the same lack of evidence on the body as they had on the other murders.

He was m...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 6

With Mom deciding to give in and just take a judgment in court and living with the restrictions from the restraining order, I was a mess by the time I got to the Blue Ridge for training on Friday. I’d manage to hold it together the day before, but apparently, I had hit my breaking point, because Chef finally noticed.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to pull your head out of your butt and get it together. We’re only halfway through warm-up, and you’ve been half-ass...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 6

The brig was a small concrete building not far from the front entrance of the base, with an MP corporal on the door, and no windows. It actually reminded Taylor a little of the sheriff’s office, with its handful of cells and room with desks for the officers on duty. The only thing missing was the front counter.

The MP lieutenant was already inside, working on the thing that really kept the Army in business, paperwork. Taylor had managed to never wind up in the brig during his time, bu...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 5

My newfound good mood lasted until two minutes into first period, when I received a note to see Vice Principal Keller right away. Sitting in the front office, waiting to be called into his office, I realized I was starting to become a fixture. The office personnel didn’t even bat an eye when I headed straight for the row of chairs outside the vice principal’s office. I didn’t think of myself as one of the trouble kids in school, but apparently, I’d become that way, since I think I spe...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 4

After dealing with Rhonda, I didn’t feel much like being around people. Not because I’d hoped to win her back or anything, since I’d already closed the door to that ever happening again, since there was no way I could actually trust her. It just hurt how easily she’d been able to cut me out of her life after the time we spent together. It sucked to find out I was disposable, at least to her.

I did stop by and let everyone know I wasn’t staying for lunch. Partly because I didn�...

The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 28

“Query, Commander,” the AI said as Ky wrote out documents for the proper treatment of waste in the city.

It was barely light out, the light blue of dawn creeping through the edges of his tent, and he had already been awake for hours, making notes for glassmakers for new forms of lenses and notes on the letter zero for both the philosophers and the palace money counters, to expand their experiments with the new number system he’d introduced.

Despite the early hour an...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 5

“So how do we do this? Once the money shows up, everyone’s eyes are going to be on it and the General will have guards all over it. We can’t just wave our badges and walk in with the money. That’s the same as if we just told everyone it’s a trap.”

“I know. We need to game out how to secure it ahead of time and get everything we need in place before the money shows up. They won’t be paying attention to us moving in and out of empty warehouses and if we cover our tracks, t...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 3

I’d warned Chef the day before that I was going to be late, although I hadn’t explained the particulars, since I hadn’t planned on anything coming from it. He, however, saw it as a good chance to run me ragged. Again.

“Okay, stop,” he said as he paced in front of me as I pushed through pushups. “You’re just making me want to cry watching this. This is the worst effort I’ve seen from you since we started. What’s going on today?”

He wasn’t wrong. Between all th...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 2

Wednesday afternoon I was at the baseball field in my PE clothes along with about thirty other kids. I’d let Chef know I was going to be late and Hanna had agreed to wait for me. Actually, both she and Kat had waited and were currently sitting up in the stands with a handful of other friends of people trying out, watching us.

I felt a little bad about having to constantly beg rides, but there didn’t seem to be much I could do about that any time soon. My birthday was coming up in tw...

Danger Close (John Taylor #7) - Chapter 4

The sheriff’s office wasn’t hard to find, located at the end of the main street, in a small one-story building that housed the courthouse, police station, and mayor’s office. The building was divided into a two-story center section with two one-story wings on either side.

The two-story center held the city's town hall, which was mostly just a clerk’s office that handled tickets, permits, and the like, a storage room for records, and the mayor's office. Taylor had read somewhere ...

The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 27

A banging on his door woke Ky just as the sun came up. They’d worked late into the night again, sending out recruiters into both the prison camp outside the walls and to across the city and its outskirts, looking for slaves to sign up for the legion.

They'd all agreed that the sooner they got these new men into training, the better. It took time to make a legionnaire and they had only four months at the most before the Carthaginians began their march on Devnum. Ky knew they’d contin...

Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 1

It was close to midnight and I was sitting in the living room of one of my two best friends, Hanna Philips, the first friend I’d made moving to town, with her and Katherine Moore, who was … complicated. We were huddled up under a big blanket together on Hanna’s couch, watching the commentator kill time while they waited for the countdown to midnight. Hanna had just gotten back from her skiing vacation and the three of us had spent all day together, just catching up. Our parents thought ...