Havoc-on-Hudson
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
“Mommy, please don’t go, Mommy, please don’t leave me!” he cried, his pathetic wails lost in the foul wake of the giant Greyhound bus. As the double-decker behemoth closed its doors and started moving, the boy fell to his knees on the muddy pavement, watching helplessly. He’d been just a minute too late to reach her, and now she was leaving him behind.
“I hate you!” Mommy had screamed, jolting him awake. He’d jumped out of bed, scurried to his listening post behind the bedroom door, and peeked through the crack. Papa was sitting on the living-room floor in a puddle of his own pee. Mama stood over him, shrieking. “I can’t take it any more! I’m leaving! I’m never coming back.” She turned away from Papa, grabbed a small suitcase from the big living-room closet, and stalked toward the bedroom door. Papa picked up the empty whisky bottle and hurled it at her. She ducked into their bedroom, fast, and slammed the door. Danny Joe heard the bottle smash into the door and crack into a million pieces.
When she came out of the bedroom, she was wearing the flowery blue dress she sometimes wore to Sunday church. The suitcase dragged, as if it were heavy. Danny ran out into the living room and threw himself at her, grabbing her around the waist. “No! No! Don’t go, Mommy! Don’t go!”Before Mommy could hug him, Papa grabbed him by the shoulder and slung him across the room. “Get outta here, you brat!” The air smelled of pee and whisky.
Mama gave Danny Joe a sorrowful look. Then she turned to Papa. “You’ve destroyed my life, you bastard!” she yelled. “And Danny Joe’s, too! I never want to see you again!” She grabbed for Danny’s hand and pulled him after her toward the front door, pajamas, bare feet and all.“You ain’t getting my son,” Papa roared, and jerked the boy away. “If he is my son! A slut like you, who could know for sure!” He dragged the struggling boy into his room and threw him on his bed. Danny Joe sobbed and sobbed.
Then he heard the door slam. “Mommy. Mommy,” he cried.Papa rushed into his room yelling, and pulled him out of bed. “Get your clothes on quick and follow your mother. C’mon, c’mon, hurry! I want to know where she’s going! I said hurry, you little bastard!” His words sounded as if his cheeks were filled with mashed potatoes.
“I hate your stupid guts,” Danny Joe muttered, wriggling into jeans and a sweatshirt. “I hope you die and burn in hell!”Mommy was probably going to her friend Leah’s house again. She’d go there whenever Papa got really crazy and threatened to kill them. Leah always let her stay until he’d act normal again and beg Mommy to forgive him and please come home. But this time she said she’d had it up to here with his abuse, and no amount of begging would change her mind. Half asleep, wet and shivering, he followed her at a distance. It took him a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t going to Leah’s house. She was walking in the opposite direction, her umbrella blowing every which way in the wind, and the rain coming down hard.
Oh, no! She was headed towards the bus station at the top of the hill. He began running slipping and sliding on the muddy road as fast as he could. He got close enough to see her step into the bus, but she never saw him or heard his cries and the bus moved on towards the horizon without him.“MO-M-MY!”
Danny Joe would never forget the sticky mud and the awful fumes that made his eyes burn as the bus pulled away into the distance. This was worse than his scariest nightmare. Rain soaked through his clothes. He shivered and shivered. A white-haired man, seeing a child at risk on the busy road, picked him up kicking and screaming, snatched him away from the traffic and into the safety of the bus station.But Danny Joe didn’t want to be saved—he wanted to die—he wanted to be run over by the cars and trucks like bloody road kill. That was just what he felt like—road kill. He was eight years old and Mommy had left him. How could she go away? Who would take care of him now?
“I love you, Mommy, I love you Mommy!” he cried, his small voice adrift in the wind.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
As a real estate broker greets a classy, well-dressed visitor at an Open House in upscale Hudson Hills, she has no idea that minutes later he will pin her against the wall, yank up her skirt, and clamp his gloved hand over her nose and mouth. The unwitting victim is only saved from a catastrophic fate by the young couple who abruptly appear at the door. When another broker is found beaten, raped, and left for dead in the basement of a vacant house she had been showing to a prospective buyer, the peace and tranquility of the picturesque Hudson River Valley is shattered and suddenly becomes an unsafe place for real estate agents.
In this riveting thriller, Maggie Mitty, a prominent Hudson Hills Realtor®, is caught off guard when the newly-hired police chief asks for her help in solving the case. With local brokers paralyzed by fear, and a potential serial rapist on the loose, Maggie has her job cut out for her. But after she discovers a murdered colleague in a Jacuzzi, Maggie realizes that she is up against more than she had bargained for -- a psychopath with an insatiable thirst for blood.
About the Author
Bernice Gottlieb is a former representative to the United Nations and a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She is the author of Take My Children, a Love Story and The Dove in the Tea Room. Bernice has lived in the Hudson Valley for more than fifty years. Havoc-on-Hudson is her first novel.