Chapter
One of On the Edge
by Julie Coulter Bellon
A Deseret Book's Best Seller!
Dylan Campbell walked along the
side of the
Kampala
road, his feet aching, and his camera bag slapping against his hip.
Of all the times for his jeep to have engine trouble!
With each step his boots ground into the road, his frustration evident.
The last two intelligence gathering missions–or to be more
politically correct, threat assessment directives--had been just like this,
with one thing going wrong after another and he was tired of it.
Tired of the whole business. It definitely wasn’t the smooth James
Bond lifestyle he’d thought it would be.
He absently rubbed the scar just underneath his collarbone and above
his heart. Getting shot had
changed his perspective on his career with the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service. He knew it wasn’t what
he wanted to do in life anymore and he needed to get out and find something
else. He planned to tell his boss,
Andrew Blythe, as soon as he got home from
Uganda
. Dylan couldn’t remember the
feel of his own bed beneath him and he wanted to go home, to regroup
emotionally, something that every good agent needed to do once in a while–to
get in touch with their emotions.
He sighed and adjusted the
camera bag over his hip again. His cover for this mission had been that he was
a photojournalist capturing the medical failures and successes of private
hospitals in
Kampala
, the capital city of
Uganda
. The only drawback was carrying around the blasted camera bag.
It was awkward against his hip and making it sore, but walking was his
only option at this point. The
road was empty and would probably remain so at this time of night.
In the daytime it was teeming with people, vehicles, and animals.
When Dylan had first arrived he was amazed at the number of people
driving small herds of goats and Ankole cattle on such a busy road.
Especially among the chaotic driving–on the wrong side of the road
for a Canadian driver—that included not only buses, slow-moving trucks with
men lounging on top of the loads, taxis and the like, but also had carts,
bicycles, mopeds, and bodabodas, a type of motorbike.
Near
midnight
, however, it was dark and silent.
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Prologue
of Through Love's Trials
by Julie Coulter Bellon
A Deseret Book's Best Seller!
“Paul,
would you come into my office, please?” Edward Carrington motioned to the
junior partner walking down the hall.
“Uh,
sure Mr. Carrington,” Paul replied. He
shifted the files under his arm and followed Mr. Carrington into his office.
Waving
Paul toward a seat, Edward sat down in his expensively upholstered leather
chair behind a beautiful mahogany desk shined to perfection.
“I bet you’re wondering what this is about?” he asked Paul.
Paul nodded. “How long
have you been at our firm now?”
“Just
over a year, sir,” Paul replied.
“Have
you enjoyed working here?” Carrington asked.
“Yes,
sir, the firm of Carrington, Stone and Wells was my first choice out of law
school.”
“You
did very well in law school,” Mr. Carrington stated. “I looked over your
file. And you’ve done very well
here making a reputation for yourself as a defense attorney that we can count
on to win.” Carrington leveled
his gaze at Paul. “Do you like
to win, Paul?”
Paul
smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“What
do you know about Vicente DiChesney?” he asked, watching Paul carefully from
over the top of his glasses.
Paul
swallowed. Was this a test?
“Well, Mr. DiChesney is being charged with embezzlement and
fraud, I believe. There are some
rumors that he’s tied to the mob.”
“Do
you believe those rumors?” Mr. Carrington asked pointedly.
Paul
shifted the files on his lap. He
sensed that this answer was very important.
“Mr. Carrington I am a criminal defense attorney.
My client’s innocence or guilt will be determined by a jury of his
peers and my job is to present the facts as my client instructs me--not to
judge him.” He leaned back in
his chair, meeting the senior partner’s eyes head on.
Those
eyes glittered back at him from behind the small glasses he wore.
“Well done, son.” He
pulled a file out from the top drawer of his desk, with a small white envelope
on top. “I want to you take over
the DiChesney file. I’ll second
chair you for this trial, but I’m looking forward to a long and happy
arrangement with Vicente DiChesney and I think you are the man to help this
firm achieve the uh, closeness we want with this client.”
He fingered the white envelope on top of the file. “It
comes with a substantial raise and shot at being a full partner.”
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