Embedded Files
Literary Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Imagery Lit
A Kind of Hush explores whether there is a gray area between right and wrong. The Mackie family is enjoying a June outing at a rugged park near their Buffalo, New York home when tragedy strikes. One parent survives along with their teenage daughter and seven-year-old son found hiding in the woods. Was this a horrendous accident or something more heinous, and if so, whodunnit and whydunit? A mantle of ambiguity – a kind of hush – hangs between the survivors like a live grenade without its pin as each one deals with the circumstances and revelations surrounding the incident.
A Kind of Hush is one of five finalists in the 16th annual National Indie Excellence Awards contest in the highly competitive mystery category.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
BUFFALO, NEW YORK. Gabriel Mackie had just celebrated his fourth birthday the first time
he visited the whisper room, a windowless enclave with lavender walls brimming with daydreams,
obscured from reality. All he knew for certain was that his older brother, Griff, nicknamed Boo, was
gone. His bedroom at the end of the long hallway had been transformed into a guest room with ecru
lace duvets instead of the blue and white pinstriped spreads covering the twin beds. Vanished were
his toy box and New York Yankee American League pennants that had plastered the walls, replaced
by paintings of water lilies and wheat fields. A stray tear trickled down Gabe’s cheek when he
remembered Boo’s curly blonde hair and how he snorted when he laughed. Silence is deafening and
the Mackie household screamed heartbreak.
Tree branches dipped in the wind tossing shadows across the windows heralding a tempest
gathering force. Matt sipped his coffee and thumbed through last night’s restaurant receipts. Summer,
lost in her on own thoughts, mindlessly poured herself a refill with one hand while twirling a strand
of hair with the other. Gabe tiptoed to the kitchen doorway, jumping back when he heard his mother
slam her fist on the counter.
“It’s Willa’s fault Griff is gone,” her voice stringent and tight. “Tickling him while he sucked on
a gumball, for God’s sake. I trusted her to take care of him for fifteen minutes—fifteen damn
minutes—while I picked up Gabe from a birthday party. He couldn’t find his shoes . . . I would have
been home sooner and maybe . . . I love my daughter, but . . . She knew to call 911 in an
emergency . . . Why the hell didn’t she?”
Matt shook his head. “Summer come on . . . you’ve got to quit blaming her,” his voice rising an
octave in frustration. “You’re as responsible as Willa.”
Summer turned her back to her husband shielding the wounds caused by his words.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” regret echoed in his apology. “I’m so sorry . . . Please, we don’t need
to be playing this blame game. . . .”
“I guess it’s too much to ask for you to understand what I’m going through, Matt. What part of
my daughter killing our son don’t you get?”
“Honey, you’re overreacting. . . .”
They both turned as Gabe scampered into the room dragging a stuffed elephant by its trunk.
“Mommy, did Willa find where Boo’s hiding? Quackers and me wanna play next . . . you count to ten
and say ready-or-not, here I come . . . okay?”
*****
One heedless moment changed the Mackies forever as normalcy assumed a new persona for a
family in crisis. Summer yielded to her debilitating grief and broken-heart syndrome, attending
extensive counseling, struggling to coexist with what surely would be a lifetime of regret and guilt
for her role in her child’s death. Tina, Matt’s college friend and partner in their restaurant/sports bar,
shouldered more of the day-to-day operations while he concentrated on the needs of his preteen
daughter, youngest son, and his wife, relegating his own suffering to the back-burner. Further
complicating matters, the first global pandemic in forty years, dubbed the “swine flu,” shuttered over
nine-hundred schools in New York State for days including Willa’s elementary school enabling their
precocious ten-year-old to huddle nonstop with her best friends developing secret codes and unifying
opinions of what they loved and hated from food to fashion to music and beyond. At night she played
the bed at nine o’clock is for babies . . . and give me some privacy . . . please cards. She, too, was in
therapy where her counselor reported a progression in her sketches softening her mom’s devil-image
and depicting herself and Gabe romping through fields of shamrocks. Young Gabe spent most days
in the sanctuary of his own thoughts, languidly building marshmallow forts with toothpicks, doodling
stick figures on gum wrappers, erecting statues with purple paradise and foam green Play-Doh and
knowing with certainty the humming inside a seashell was for his ears only.
Neighbors and friends of the couple offered additional support—arranging play dates with the
Mackie children, supplying an unlimited assortment of homemade cookies, picking up laundry, and
hosting sleepovers allowing Matt and Summer some privacy. In the beginning, the family experienced
progressions of despair and disillusionment like a bitter wind lacerating an empty heart. As hours
turned into days and days into months, scars concealed the wounds and the most tormenting pleas—
why and how could a loving God be so merciless—were placated with soothing testimonies
sermonizing how He is too kind to do anything cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too
philosophical to explain Himself. Tears that uncontrollably sprung from some secret reservoir were
replaced with shards of hope, sweet reflections, and moments of tenderness rather than grief.
Summer and Matt rekindled the relationship that began when she and a group of male coworkers
walked into his establishment ten years ago. She appeared to have just stepped out of a refrigerated
box while the others wilted in humidity and stifling heat. His future wife owned that “can’t-take-your-
eyes-off-of” look of a femme fatale wrapped in the wholesomeness of a Jennifer Aniston . . . a
dangerous combination. His heart rate rivaled a thoroughbred on his way to the finish line of the
Kentucky Derby. His bachelorhood was skating on thin ice.
The Mackies resumed the habits and routines that dictated daily life—both parents returned to
their jobs, Willa traversed the halls of middle school and Gabe kept his first-grade teachers on their
toes until a road trip once more toppled their lives into disarray.
*****
2012 JUNE SOLSTICE. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is easier to grasp than a teenage
girl. Reportedly, a “typical” teen might exhibit all seven personalities associated with this age group
with Willa Mackie’s photograph at the top of the profile page. She changed gears faster than a race
car driver, often a darling until spoken to then spewing the venom of a dragon spitting fire in response.
Mornings before school introduced the drama queen of the day, as if the end of the world lurked
nearby because it was Monday and she wanted it to be Tuesday. Spending time with family was
seldom a priority in her teenage world.
The family’s weekend outing was planned for departure around noon. While Matt and Gabe
played tag football in the backyard, Summer, for the third time, climbed the stairs to Willa’s bedroom.
She jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. Praying for the ability to bury a groundswell of impatience
amid the urge to take an ax to the door, Summer took a deep breath and knocked—the response from
the other side, a razor-sharp, “Mom, if you keep bugging me, I’ll never be ready.”
“Is there anything wrong. Can I help?”
“Just leave me alone. All my jeans are dirty.”
“It’s warm today. Put on some shorts and let’s go. Dad’s getting antsy.”
“No, my legs are all white and ugly and my hair—who did I get this bushy brown mess from?
Have I told you how much I just hate it?”
“Yes, numerous times. Your curls are from my mother—your grandmother—Willa. It seemed
to work for Emma Watson in Harry Potter—remember Hermione Granger?”
“She’s a movie star. I’m Brillo Pad Willa at school.”
“Honey, we can’t fix that today, but I promise, we’ll check with a beautician to see what we can
do to relax your curls. I’m trying to give you space but. . . .”
“Try harder, Mom . . . I’ll be down when I’m ready.”
Around four o’clock the family buckled their seatbelts and Matt shifted the Jeep Patriot into
reverse, backing out of the driveway of their Lakeview home on Prospect Avenue. Willa nestled close
to the window carping about a stomachache, arms folded across her lap at the sheer injustice of being
hustled out of the house so fast she forgot her MP3 player loaded with her favorite Backstreet Boys ’
hits. Gabe’s knees slapped together as he mouthed the words while reading one of his Encyclopedia
Brown books. The catalyst of his imagination visible—he was the boy detective solving cases in the
neighborhood. The whistling through the open windows brought to mind a wind instrument playing
in harmony with Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” blaring from the radio. Matt side-glanced at his
wife. Summer was blessed with almond-shaped eyes as vivid as a gentian sea under a cloudless sky,
and a long raven-tinted mane that drifted in the breeze like a mermaid’s weightless hair in a tide pool.
The couple was finally doing something unencumbered and healthy. In an hour they would be soaking
up the natural splendor of the Zoar Valley Gorge, absorbing the balmy weather, and, with a little luck,
nestling back into symmetry, emulating the common place of Harper Lee’s fictional house of Finch.
Following Point Peter Road for about a mile, they turned left on Valentine Flats at the paint-
peeling farmhouse where the grommets on an American flag dinged against a tall metal pole in the
front yard. The parking area dead-ended into the trailhead where the Mackies piled out of the car led
by Matt and Summer holding hands while Gabe hop-scotched behind them. Willa followed, yawning
and lamenting at the cruelty of spending time with her lame family in the middle of nowhere, when
she could be hanging out with her friends. If her parents insisted on seeing waterfalls, they could at
least have gone to Niagara for the real thing.
The path from the parking area led to where the trail down to the creek began. About halfway
there, Gabe, jumping from one foot to the other, pulled on his mother’s arm announcing he had to go
to the bathroom.
“I asked you specifically if you had to go when we got here.”
“But I didn’t hafta then.”
“Mom, like if it’ll shut him up, I’ll take him,” said Willa.
Broody clouds darkened Summer’s mood. “I can’t lose another child. . . .” She gasped at how
cruel her remark sounded, but she couldn’t pull the words back. Willa walked away with a dismissive
wave of her hand, showing Summer the dagger delivered to her daughter’s heart was already leaking
contempt.
Matt put his arm around Summer, his knuckle stroking her cheek. Her eyes cut over to meet his.
“I’m sorry for what I said. I just panicked at the thought of Gabe. . . .”
“I know but smothering him won’t keep him safe. He doesn’t need anyone to hold his hand.
And, after all he’s just going to the forestroom . . . instead of the bathroom . . . get it?” Matt snickered.
“Yes, clever but not funny.”
“My customers think I’m a hoot.”
“Owls hoot—don’t give up your day job.”
Gabe, unable to stick around until the potty issue was decided, wandered off to find the nearest
tree, stopping on the way to pick up a flat rock. Examining it closely, he rubbed his fingers over the
layers before putting it in his pocket.
“Gabriel . . . hurry up. We’re waiting for you, son,” hollered Matt.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family soaked in the spectacular views and fields of wildflowers
dotted with kidney-leaf and golden swamp buttercups swaying alongside northern white violets. Time
is a foggy notion to a child and for Gabe it was reminiscent of a feather in the wind charting its own
path with every gust. He circled his tree twice while zipping his pants then gamboled back to where
he had left his parents and sister, but before Gabe could call out to them, he was distracted by a
clicking noise coming from a stranger running past. When he looked back, his family had vanished.
On that fateful day, the whisper room again shouted Gabriel Mackie’s name. On this occasion
the walls were moss-covered and painted quiet, the dirt floor moist with dewdrops, and the ceiling a
canopy of nodding hemlock trees, sugar maples, and yellow birch shrouding a galaxy of stars
flickering around an eyelash moon. Late night storms had cleansed the sky, and as the earth revolved,
first light appeared hailing the onset of a new day.
Rescue teams rappelled two-hundred feet to the bottom of the Gorge to recover the body of
Summer Mackie face-down in the shallow water, dead at the scene. Husband, Matt, was found
disoriented with brain trauma. Willa resembled a hunted animal trapped in quicksand, her head
whirling from side to side as if looking for an escape route. Dried tears streaked her face and blood
dripped from the corner of her bruised lip.
“We’re here to help, young lady. My name is Axl—yeah . . . my mom was a Guns N ’Roses
junkie. What’s your name?”
“Willa. My arm hurts so bad and it’s hard to breathe.”
“Okay, Willa. We’re going to get you out of here. A helicopter’s waiting to take you to the
hospital.”
“What about my little brother. Did you find him?” her voice as wobbly as an inflatable balloon
advertising a grandiose event.
Gabe sat motionless against a tree close to where his family vanished; knees pulled up under his
chin while helicopter blades whirled shafts of light in a circular dance overhead. Daddy always said
if we were lost to stay put and someone would find us. Muffled voices pierced the stillness as he
withdrew deeper inside his safe zone instead of calling out. The small hairs on the back of his neck
bristling until he heard a thick voice.
“Sheriff, we’ve got a little boy missing—the sister asked Axl if we found her brother. I’ve got
this lone shoe—one of those fancy Converse All-Star Chuck Taylors. It’s got to belong to a kid.”
“I’m over here . . . can I have my shoe?”
Gabe, his face mucky with dried tears and grime, squinted at the man in a brightly colored safety
vest. He reached for the shoe, slipping it on his socked foot, double knotting the laces. “I saw red balls
in the sky last night,” he said in a small voice.
“Awesome. My name is Conner and I’m here to help you. What’s your name?”
“Gabe Mackie. My mom, dad, and sister left me . . . did you find them?”
“We’re going to take you to them.”
Sheriff Warren McAlister and Deputy Conner Boyle escorted Gabe out of the forest and into a
waiting ambulance where paramedics evaluated his condition, determining he suffered from
exhaustion, hunger, dehydration, and a few bug bites, but no serious injuries. Before the ambulance
door closed, Conner patted Gabe’s arm saying, “I’ve never met anyone who has seen those red balls—
it’s called a red sprite. Astronauts are usually the only ones who get to see them because they form
on top of thunderclouds and lightning triggers the burst of red light. You looked up just at the right
time. They’re gone in a split second. You rest now. These guys will take good care of you, and I’ll
see you at the hospital.”
Book Blitz - June 24th
3. Book Junkiez
7. JB Bookworms
10. Gale Stanley
11. Momma Says to Read or Not to Read
12. Books Blog
16. Book Reviews by Virginia Lee
18. SusanMF16
20. Quill and Ink
22. Musings From an Addicted Reader
24. Texas Book Nook
JoDee Neathery is a firm believer that dreams do come true with the release of her debut award winning novel, Life in a Box, in July 2017 asking the question, how much would you sacrifice to hide a secret? A few colorful characters were plucked off her family tree, encasing their world inside fictional events to create her literary novel.
The idea for her latest novel, A Kind of Hush, appeared in the middle of the night with the profile of the young boy and the first few sentences scratched out on the every-present notepad on the nightstand beside her bed. “I didn’t know the whole story, but I knew that whatever I wrote next, this young lad had to play a major role in the narrative and Gabriel Edward Mackie doesn’t disappoint.”
JoDee was born in Southern California moving to Midland, Texas at the age of five. Her professional career began in the banking industry moving into public relations executive recruiting until relocating to East Texas where she experienced more opportunities to write and enjoys a byline, Back Porch Musings, a lighthearted view of life in general, in an area newspaper. Her dream “job” has been chairing and writing minutes and reviews for the community book club, Bookers, for eighteen years and it was those members that championed her novel writing journey. “They believed in me before I did.”
Contact Links
Website: https://www.jodeeneathery.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/authorihope
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoDeeNeatheryAuthor/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodee-neathery-94b2b33b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neatheryjodee/
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/authorihope/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jodeeneathery
BookBuzz: https://book-buzz.net/book/a-kind-of-hush-by-jodee-neathery/
Purchase Links
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098M282NP
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940164970741
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-kind-of-hush-2
iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-kind-of-hush/id1575064332
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1093218
<a href="https://sites.google.com/rabtbooktoursandpr.com/summer-2022-blitzes/jodee-neathery-a-kind-of-hush-book-blitz">
<img height="200" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/production-sitebuilder-v1-0-3/663/206663/rL88XEv2/b5d229fff3f343b5be4c9b4306964247" width="500"></a>
Page updated
Report abuse