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Bette Cox Fiction, Nonfiction, and Inspirational Writing

The Simsville Inheritance

Avery Alderson has inherited an entire town from her Aunt Myrtle. What on earth will she do with it? Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 30 - Will wonders about Avery, vice versa

Will didn't make snap judgments, habitually giving everyone the same amount of healthy doubt on first meeting. He hadn't missed her slight signs of fatigue nor Avery's unusual choice of daytime apparel. Black on black. Hmm.

He was a little surprised by the youthful appearance of this new owner of Simsville, despite the fact that he knew her age. Experience hadn't caused many, if any, wrinkles on that attractive face.

He had been briefed on Avery's background from "the ground up," childhood through her present employment. Nice resume, impressive skill set. Good references in her file.

Still, someone with more expertise in the field would have been preferable as the next property holder of this unique town, he felt. He wondered how much Jones had explained to Avery, how much detail. Probably not much, if he knew Jones. And he did.

Will's preliminary impressions compartmentalized Avery into "unknown, untested." More thorough thought about her qualifications could wait until later. He turned back to Jones without waiting for a response to his question.

"This latest event needs a different type of response than the girl's kidnapping, Jones. We've got several people checking the roster of town residents with a fine tooth comb. He's here or close by, we're sure of that much. Definitely familiar with the downtown routine.

Maybe a day worker or some other type of regular visitor. A vendor or salesman, equipment maintenance maybe, just enough computer savvy for a half-way sophisticated hacking job, but not one of us. You understand what I mean."

Jones nodded. He did indeed. If he was he'd have been more careful, more invisible. More damaging.

Continued...

To contact Bette Cox:

1231-1 Via Ponticello
Florence, SC 29501
(843) 665-7620
E-mail bettecox@bellsouth.net

Bette Cox

Elizabeth G. "Bette" Cox grew up in Florence, in the heart of South Carolina's Pee Dee region. She attended the University of South Carolina at Florence, now Francis Marion University, and in 2006 received a Certificate as Oral Historian from UCLA-Davis. This site is dedicated to her first love, writing.

Bette's Blogs

Talk With Bette - Information and opinions. If it interests me, it'll interest you.

S. C. Family Memories - Remembrances of growing up in South Carolina

Speaking of Heaven - Ideas and mental images about heaven.

Esther's Petition - Bible studies and meditations from Scripture.

Tapister - Threads of current news weaving an end-times tapestry.

The Defending Blade - Full-length novel with historical background; uploaded in serial form.

"Why I Love Murder Mysteries"

The summers I spent with my grandmother Mimi and my grandfather Da weren’t all ordinary work in the house, yard, garden or farm. I did my share of exploring and excavating the sand hill dirt for arrowheads. Found a few, too.

My brother Bud, young uncle Mike and I climbed our share of chinaberry trees, stringing tobacco twine and tin cans for telephones or walkie-talkies. Police detectives! Soldiers! Spies! We quarreled over who’d be the good guys since no-one wanted to be the enemy – they always lost.

I felt my share of itchy sawdust inside my jeans from zooming down the sawdust piles on makeshift sleds of pine bark. I received my fair share of maypop hand grenade blasts, coating the outside of my jeans with more sawdust. Red bugs loved sawdust as much as I did, I discovered. Kerosene in the bathwater! Mimi scrubbed our jeans with lye soap, muttering under her breath words not understandable to young ears, probably not repeatable either.

But some days it rained and some days it was just too hot to play outside. One such afternoon I was helping Mimi with butterbean shelling when the mailman's car pulled up to the edge of the yard. Mimi set down her pan, shook out her apron, and walked out to the mailbox.

She pulled out catalogs addressed to Occupant or to grandpa, sorted through duns and circulars, and that's when our day became a bit more fun. Her True Crime magazine and Reader's Digest had arrived.

Mimi and Da got the Florence newspaper delivered bright and early every morning. In the mail, Da got his farm-to-market bulletins and Popular Mechanics and Farmer's Almanac. In a pinch these would do for light reading, if you were bored enough. But Mimi subscribed to True Crime and Reader's Digest, McCall Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Woman's Day, and Red Book!

Back inside the house, we took a break. Mimi leaned back in her armchair with her feet propped up, I sprawled on the sofa by the window and she handed me the Reader's Digest. She kept the True Crime.