Today at Love Bytes we have a sneak unique peak of the new upcoming release “A Friend in the Dark” which is the first co authored book by C.S Poe & Gregory Ashe!

A Friend in the Dark is book 1 in the brand new series “An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery”.
Go check out this sneak peak into their story and count the days till release day Sept 8!

Title: A Friend in the Dark

Series: An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery #1

Author(s): Gregory Ashe and C.S. Poe

Length: 70,000k (novel)

Cover Artist: Reese Dante

Genre: Amateur sleuth mystery, romance

Release: September 8, 2020

Blurb:

Rufus O’Callaghan has eked out a living on the streets of New York City by helping the police put away criminals as a confidential informant. But when Rufus shows up for an arranged meeting and finds his handler dead, his already-uncertain life is thrown into a tailspin. Now someone is trying to kill Rufus too, and he’s determined to find out why.

 

After leaving the Army under less than desirable circumstances, Sam Auden has drifted from town to town, hitching rides and catching Greyhounds, until he learns that a former Army buddy, now a police detective in New York City, has died by suicide. Sam knows that’s not right, and he immediately sets out to get answers.

 

As Rufus and Sam work together to learn the truth of their friend’s death, they find themselves entangled in a web of lies, cover-ups, and accelerating danger. And when they witness a suspect killed in cold blood, they realize they’re running out of time.

 

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Sam didn’t like the idea of knocking; the building was too quiet, and, anyway, Jake was dead. If anybody was home—Jesus, the girlfriend? No, Jake had said they weren’t living together, come stay on the couch, thirsty little bitch that he was. So knocking wasn’t on the agenda. Sam settled a hand on the doorknob, lightly. He wanted to see how it felt first—if it was as old and rattly as it looked, he could probably get past it with a decent chisel and mallet from a hardware store. But if it was in better condition, he’d have to figure out something else.

When he tested the knob, though, it turned. Sam let out a slow breath. His heart beat quicker, like an internal fuse was lit. He had only a little time before the shakes started acting up, bad, and if somebody was in there, Sam would be fucked. He unholstered the M9, leaned into the door slowly until he was sure there wasn’t a chain, something that might catch it, and then he threw it open all the way, bringing the M9 up a third of the way but still mostly pointed at the ground.

The skinny guy with the beanie, the one Sam had spotted slipping into the building, was sitting in a chair, watching the door. Eating tortilla chips. He raised his light-colored eyebrows and asked with no particular inflection in his voice, “Who the fuck are you?”

Sam brought up the M9. “Get on the ground. Drop the fucking chips and get on the fucking ground.”

The guy shoved a few more chips in his mouth and crunched loudly. “You don’t live here.”

“But I’ve got the gun, fuckwad. Get on the ground. Let me see your hands.”

The skinny kid dropped the bag unceremoniously. Crumbs littered the hardwood at his feet. He licked salt from his fingers and then wiggled them. “Here they are.”

Sam felt a moment of panic; he could feel the shakes getting started, and worse, he’d never faced down with a freckled asshole who wouldn’t just get on the fucking floor when he had a gun pointed at him. In thirty seconds, forty, the tremors would be visible. How fucking scary was a gun when the guy holding it couldn’t keep it steady?

He let the muzzle drop, M9 along his thigh, steadying his hand against his leg. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Rufus.”

Sam came the rest of the way into the apartment, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. Anything to stay steady, stable, solid. “Why are you in Jake’s apartment?”

The cocky smile Rufus had been wearing was gone. Suddenly. Without warning. He stood from the chair, chips cracking under the heel of his Chucks. “How do you know Jake?”

Decision time, Sam thought. He scanned the studio apartment: the unmade bed, the jumble of clothes and shoes in the closet, the spotless kitchen because Jake, like so many enlisted guys, couldn’t even boil water. The heat, unnoticed until now, hammered Sam. He could smell Jake, faint and lingering. Smell Rufus too—sweat, sure, also but Dial soap, overpowering in the closed-up, heated room. Something else Sam couldn’t put his finger on. Something that tickled his gut, and Sam wasn’t sure it was pleasant.

“Jake and I were in the Army together,” Sam said. “Now you.”

Rufus hadn’t broken eye contact. Maybe hadn’t even blinked since Sam had said “Jake.” “Prove it.”

“Do you have a phone?”

Rufus patted his pocket in response.

“Facebook?”

“Facebook is for old people,” Rufus said with a short bark of a laugh.

In spite of himself, Sam snorted. “I guess perspective is skewed when your balls haven’t dropped yet. You can find a picture of our platoon from basic—search for military yearbook sites. We were at Fort Leonard Wood, 2000, B-5-9, 2nd Platoon.”

Rufus tugged his cell free and started typing. He looked up every few seconds, keeping one eye trained on Sam’s weapon, before he seemed to have zeroed in on the photo in question. Rufus brought the phone closer, studied the screen, looked Sam over with a critical expression, then said, “You aged like shit.”

“Yeah, well, call me when you get pubes and we’ll see how you’re doing.” Before Rufus could respond, Sam added, “Now you tell me how you know Jake.”

Rufus gripped the phone tight. His skin had flushed, from the hollow of his neck to the lobes of his ears visible under the beanie. “I know him from work.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam’s grin was hard, hooking one corner of his mouth. “You a big, butch cop too?”

“Obviously,” Rufus said with heavy mockery. “I still know him from work, and I’m not going to tell you anything else.” He held up the phone and waved it back and forth. “You were in basic together. Big deal. Maybe Jake hated you. Maybe you’re a stalker. I don’t even know your name.”

“Sam.”

“Sam,” Rufus repeated. “Ok. It was nice meeting you, Sam. Now you want to move aside so I can go?”

“No,” Sam said. “I’m going to level with you, Rufus. I’m going to be really fucking honest with you. I’m tired. I’ve been on a bus for a day and a half. I hate this fucking city. And you are a real fucking treat yourself. I’ve been jerked around by Jake’s asshole partner; when I ask about forensics, I get answers that ought to make sense, and then it turns out everyone wants to pretend Jake killed himself. And that’s bullshit. I knew Jake. He wouldn’t have killed himself. Not when he was—” Sam stopped, the contents of that last e-mail burning his lips. He managed to say instead, “Then I get to his apartment and find Lucky fucking Charms eating his chips and willing to tell me fuck-all about why he’s in there. So, no, I’m not getting out of the way. We’re going to have a long talk. Really long. Until I know everything I want to know.”

The color that’d been in Rufus’s face—skin marred from maybe embarrassment, maybe annoyance—hell, maybe just the heat—had drained until he was the color of Elmer’s glue. Rufus shoved his cell into his pocket. “Jake was—” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat before trying again. “Jake was murdered.”

 

 

 

Gregory Ashe is a longtime Midwesterner. He has lived in Chicago, Bloomington (IN), and Saint Louis, his current home. When not reading and writing (which take up a lot of his time), he is an educator.

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C.S. Poe is a Lambda Literary and two-time EPIC award finalist, and a FAPA award-winning author of gay mystery, romance, and speculative fiction.

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