The day started out pleasant enough. The wind was whipping through the trees causing the brightly colored leaves to fall. Shades of red, orange, and yellow covered the ground. Jax stood on the balcony of his private hotel suite breathing in the crisp autumn air. He hadn’t seen such a beautiful day in a long time. The sun shone brightly warming the day to 60 degrees.

Finishing his coffee, he sat down at the table on the balcony. He opened his laptop and noted his book was nearly finished. He would be emailing the manuscript to Kristi tonight.

Jax placed his coffee cup down on the table as he thought about all the terrible, unbelievable events that had transpired over the past six months. The stalking, the murders, everything. It was as if it were just a horrifying nightmare, something out of a book.

His latest book.

Disturbed was turning into more than just a thriller, it had taken a macabre twist given all that had recently transpired in his life. He wasn’t sure how his romance audience would take to it. Jax had tried to turn down the horror themes in the book after Jessica advised him to, but he simply couldn’t.

It was just too damn good to change.

Or maybe that was his narcissism getting the best of him.

All great authors must feel like this at one point or another, he thought. Why even Stephen King or Anne Rice must have reached that point in their career where they felt every word they wrote was divinely inspired. The words were coming to him so fast and furious, each emotion he felt poured out of him like a torrent. Surely, other great authors had experienced this as well. He was so close, he thought, so close to reaching icon status in the publishing world.

Jax chuckled as he thought of how tragic his life had been just ten years earlier. He had been a wounded Marine, a cripple stuck in a wheelchair when Brooke mentioned he should take up writing.

And so he had.

Publishing his own first novel, he quickly gained a following on Facebook. A few months passed and he’d met Kristi, his PA. She’d stuck by him through his traumatic break up with Brooke, through his growing pains in the business until he’d broke USA Today as a solo author.

After that, the sky seemed the limit. His audience grew overnight or so it seemed. He invested a great deal of his earnings into advertising and marketing bringing him a coveted spot on the NYT bestseller list.

But he wasn’t high enough.

Jax craved that #1 spot more than anything. That’s what Jessica Pierce was supposed to help him with. The stalking plan was the most brilliant thing Jax had ever heard.

And it had worked.

His novel, Disturbed was the best he’d ever written. The only problem was the horror of his novel was starting to feel real.

A bit too real.

Jax shivered as he thought about the scene where his main character, Jake Steele finds himself standing in the middle of the woods behind his house with a knife stained with blood. He has no idea how or why he got there. He doesn’t know whose blood it is. All he knows is that his ex-girlfriend is missing. He admires the way the moonlight shines on the blade of the knife turning the red stain into a silvery crimson.

Jax recalled with horror how he kept finding himself in places he didn’t understand. He thought it was the stress of the stalking, the death of Jessica, but maybe it was something more. His heart caught in his throat as he realized this wasn’t the first time something mysterious had happened to him.

The Egyptian pin.

He thought of the gold and emerald U shaped pin he’d found as child in Egypt. His parents had uncovered the stolen pin when he’d been in the hospital. At first, they’d tried to take it away from him citing it’s historical value to the people of Egypt. Jax had cried and pleaded with them to let him keep it, but they’d refused.

So they sent back the pin to the Egyptian excavation team.

But six months later it came back.

His parents were baffled when a small box addressed to Jax had come in the mail. Thinking it was a belated birthday gift, they’d given it to him to open. Beneath the paper was a box with mysterious hieroglyphs on it. His father who was well versed in reading ancient writing read it to him.

To the keeper of the U.

From the keeper of the U.

Seek and ye shall find for where the Eye is there will be the heart also.

Jax opened the box to find a smaller box which contained the pin. Eagerly, he slipped it back into his pocket.

His parents were mystified. The ominous words were strange. They were biblical quotes, but written in ancient hieroglyphs. They’d tried contacting the excavation team to tell them the pin was for them to keep, but they refused it. They said Jax was the pin’s rightful owner now that he was the one who’d found it. After much arguing, they’d decided to let him keep it.

And so he had.

He always carried it in his pocket wherever he went. He’d even tried to stop, thinking it was a security blanket of sorts, but he couldn’t stop himself. If he left the house without it, he’d turn right back around to get it.

Jax felt the pin in his right pocket. Even now, sitting out on the balcony writing it was with him.

Shrugging off those thoughts, Jax turned to finishing his book. He was anxious for Kristi to read it.