Edward, My Bad Boy,
also appears in 4 of the
Legends of the Winged Scarab Novels
He charms in Sirocco, Storm over Land and Sea
He cons in After the Cataclysm
His bad side crystallizes in The Crystal Curse
And what happens in The Nile Conspiracy,
well -- you'll just have to read about it.
Even in Shadow Love, he is remembered
with some regret about what could have been...
How did he get to be that way?
This short novella here shows how he
spirals from charmer down to criminal.
Excerpt
Helen, a high-powered executive and consummate professional
when not enthralled by tall Brits, informed him she had to take an early
morning flight to Europe and that her generosity, alas, could not extend to her
home, her Mercedes and her treasured sailboat while she was away.
Edward understood, being the perfect gentleman. He returned
her key, kissed her good-night, promised to call her in two weeks.
That Sunday morning, the normally fastidious Edward did not
shave. He dressed in the midnight blue silk pajamas and brown leather
slippers—gifts from a nice woman in Newport Beach—and confidently drove up the
Silver Strand that connects seedy Imperial Beach to affluent Coronado.
A couple
of homes down from Helen’s, he spied a yellow-hulled San Diego Union in a driveway. Slowing down just enough, he
expertly scooped the Sunday paper up. Then he drove to a lone beach
emergency-telephone he had scouted out the day before. Smoothing out a sheet
torn from his motel’s Yellow Pages, he dialed the number of the first-listed
locksmith. No answer. Second: No answer. The third promised to meet him at the
given address within thirty minutes.
“Can you imagine? Here I am, out in the street in my
pajamas. I come out to pick up my Sunday paper and the door slams behind me.”
Edward’s speech is colloquial and friendly, without a trace of his usual
Eton-tinged accent.
“It happens all the time,” the locksmith commiserated. “I’ll
have you back in your house in no time.”
* * *
