A Glimpse Into My TWISTED Upcoming Releases (Free & Official)

A WHITE WOMAN SCORNED (Chapter 2: One Year Ago)

"Come on, Maddie," Nadine pleaded from the other end of the line in her heavy southern drawl.

"Nah, I'd rather stay home," Madelyn said into the phone with a smile and a thick southern drawl of her own as she sat on her couch with a leg tucked underneath her and Patricia Cornwell's newest Scarpetta novel in her lap. On the table in front of her was a glass of white wine.

"But it's your birthday. How are you going to spend it doing nothing?"

"I'm not doing nothing. I'm reading a book."

"As I said; nothing."

Madelyn chuckled.

"Maddie, just a couple of hours."

It was Madelyn's fifty fifth birthday and she had no plans on doing anything special or out of the ordinary. Birthdays were just another day to her these days. She'd stopped celebrating them shortly after her husband died ten years ago.

"But the book I'm reading is a good one," Madelyn wined.

"Girl, if you've read one Patricia Cornwell novel, you've read them all."

Madelyn chuckled again.

"You can read that book anytime. I'm just asking for a few hours. I have to be at work in three hours. Just let me spend those three hours with you at the spa; my treat."

Madelyn sighed.

"Please, Maddie, you'll love it."

"But..."

"Look, Maddie, you never do anything. You never go out anywhere. Don't you think you deserve a little excitement, a little pampering at least one damn day out of the year?"

Nadine was definitely right about Madelyn never going anywhere. Since her husband Stephen's death, she'd become a homebody. Besides shopping, church activities and running errands, she barely left the house. Her days now were mainly spent reading, tending to her garden, and watching a little television. Her life was uneventful, to say the least.

"Pleaseeeee, Maddie, pleaseee."

Madelyn groaned.

"You know you're going to say yes so hears the address."

"I didn't say..."

Before Madelyn could finish her sentence, Nadine had read off the address, said "See you there", and hung up.

With another groan, Madelyn tossed the phone on the couch beside her and looked down at her book. "Well, "Scarpetta," she said with disappointment. "I guess we're gonna have to get together a little later."