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Saturday, August 17, 2013

Serial Saturday: Suggestion Box #5 (Updated)

Featuring the contributions of Evelyn Bloom.

The List:
Elena Knight 
4:00 am 
Devonshire  
Tabby Cat

The Result:

Version #1:

Title: HERE KITTY-KITTY

She watches all day, and walks at night. You can call, but she doesn't have to answer. She is highly trained, with lethal reflexes. She will do anything if she knows it's worth her while. She only has one name: Tabby Cat.

Elena Knight, the first female detective in the small Devonshire village where the train station is the only reason people ever arrive there. She is confident in her abilities, whatever the other blokes might say. Nothing, though, has prepared her to track the Tabby Cat. A phone call at 4AM from the railway station, a woman's body found on an incoming train: clawed to death, the medical examiner says. Detective Knight isn't so sure; but who's to say the victim herself isn't the Tabby herself, killed for revenge or to hide a secret she shouldn't have known? How can they confirm the identity of a woman who apparently has none?
In a deadly game of cat-and-mouse: which is the cat, and which the mouse?

>>>>>>>>

 Version #2:

Her eyes popped open. Where--Oh, that's right. Elena Knight, writer-extraordinaire-in-the-making, slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes. The sky outside the little bed-and-breakfast still looked dark. Elena glanced at the bedside table and saw the illuminated numbers of the vintage "tumbler" clock flip from 3:59 to 4:00. She rolled her eyes. Would she ever get used to the time difference between Devonshire and her home in the States? Elena lay back, but her mind was awake now; there would be no more sleep for now. Slowly she pushed herself upright again.
"That's the price I pay for wanting to get inspiration on location," she muttered to herself as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and fished for her slippers while reaching for her robe. Yawning ferociously, she shuffled over to where she had set up her Remington typewriter in front of the little window overlooking the street. Very few people were out at this hour. Dawn was just beginning its hairline crack along the edges of the eastern sky. A low mist curled around the rooftops and chimney pots.
A sudden movement caught Elena's eye. She watched as a lone tabby cat emerged from behind a chimney and demurely padded across the rooftop. Here is a creature who dares walk when all other creatures are still, Elena thought. She cares not for the restraint of others; all the more for her.
The cat did not hesitate at the edge, but leapt lightly from one closely-packed rooftop to the next, without a care in the world.
Elena grinned; maybe jet lag would end up in her favor after all. She inserted a paper into the carrier and began to type.

"She watches all day, and walks at night. You can call, but she doesn't have to answer. She is highly trained, with lethal reflexes. She will do anything if she knows it's worth her while. She only has one name: Tabby Cat...."

The 2013 Suggestion Box Series:

#1  #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13

1 comment:

  1. Brilliant, Leslie! I love the way that you take these suggestions and completely turn our expectations about them on their heads.

    Darn it - now I want to see a full-length mystery about this! :D

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