Novel Preview: FREE DANNER by Loretta Giacoletto Ebook Available Now at: Kindle Store Smashwords Crime and Transgressional

Free Danner really is free, after spending ten years in Juvy for what the judge called an unspeakable act and Danner considered merciful. Now he’s determined to find the dad who doesn't know he exists. One thing's for sure: this is not The Maury Povitch Show; it's Danner's. And he figures everybody's out to screw him, especially the big shot who hired him as a hit-man-in-training. So what's a guy to do? The right thing, but can Danner figure out what’s right.

When Free Danner is eleven, his party-girl mom sends him to live with her parents on their Southern Illinois farm. The generation gap proves harder on the rebellious city boy than his grandparents and soon results in a tragedy so horrific no one could’ve predicted it. Fast forward to Danner at twenty-two, by-passing those years he spent in the juvenile system and then some. He locates his mom Lark in St. Louis and demands she name the clueless dad. Lark’s not sure but with Danner’s not-so-gentle persuasion, she comes up with three possibilities. Danner’s search for his dad and a better life takes him on a crisscross journey to Las Vegas, Southern California, and the Florida Panhandle. Most of the off-beat characters he encounters along the way either wind up dead or wanting Danner out of their lives. But these people don’t know the real Danner or what being free means to him.

Chapter 1

The first time I killed a man should’ve been my last, but what did I know then. This man, I didn’t exactly hate him, leastways not at first, but due to a domino effect of weird circumstances, he’d been reduced to a festering boil on the butt of humanity, begging for a quick and painless removal. The man needed help doing what he couldn’t do by himself. Okay, so I didn’t exactly kill him with my own hands but I convinced him that dying was the right thing to do, the only thing. Damage control, it’s what I did then and what I’m stuck with now. At twenty-two, jeez, give me a break, where did I go wrong.

Tonight I am driving on a two-lane highway east of Mobile, Alabama, with my current half-squeeze nodding off to the music of Dave Matthews while I discreetly follow a black Lincoln Town Car. Its chauffeur makes me no never mind but his boss in the backseat spells Bread and Butter with capital Bs, my one-way ticket to beaucoup bucks that so far have escaped me. I allow two cars between the Lincoln and my SUV, a gift from my former benefactor and didn’twannabe dad who cashed in his chips before I was ready to let him go. Not only did he introduce me to the Vegas scene, he wowed me with the great outdoors, unlike Mr. Hollywood, another didn’twannabe who took my money and left me nothing but make-believe promises.

One of the cars up ahead turns onto a side road, leaving a Mustang convertible to separate my vehicle from the Lincoln and its passenger. A cigarette flies out of the back window, its tip left glowing on the roadside. The asshole who sucked on the filter has no regard for the landscape or those who maintain it. This I already know from a pricey character profile that didn’t come out of my pocket. The convertible turns off at the next side road. Now there’s just my SUV, one hundred feet separating it from a set of taillights and the contaminator of nature, even worse, mankind. This degenerate represents the lowest form of humanity, an abuser of animals and kids who has enough money and IOUs to continually avoid incarceration. I should be so lucky, having wasted the best years of my life in juvenile detention.

Headlights to my left, another car pulls onto the highway from behind, pushing me forward against my will. I close in on the Lincoln, unsure of my next move. But then nature takes over on my behalf, a night creature scurrying from the wooded area, its beady red eyes catching the Lincoln’s headlights. The chauffeur swerves to the right, a simple act that makes me think he might have the heart his employer lacks. I brake hard and fast, as does the car behind me, judging from the squeal of tires assaulting my ears. My half-squeeze lifts her head in time to see the Lincoln hit a guard rail, bounce back and cross the highway, directly into the path of a truck speeding from the other direction. The Lincoln flips into the air, comes crashing down on the sunroof. Its horn sends out an eerie, soul-searching blast, the only sound escaping into an otherwise quiet night.

I pull over to the side of the road. The car dogging me does the same and from the driver’s side a woman hops out. Cell phone plastered to her ear, she approaches my vehicle, leaving me no choice but to roll down the window.

“I’ve already called 911,” she yells while passing by. “Do you have any blankets?”

No need to answer her question since I notice the truck driver partly responsible for this mess is now running toward the Lincoln’s crumbled remains. He’s carrying more than one army blanket, which relieves me from the first-aid gig I want no part of.

POW … POW, POW! Without warning, the Lincoln explodes, hurling its junk into the sky, across the highway, and onto the hood of my SUV. A severed hand bounces off. My half-squeeze goes wide-eyed spastic, her delayed-reaction, gut-retching scream tangling my gut into one sorry knot. When it comes to blood and gore mixed with the emotional outburst of a high-maintenance female, I, John Earl Danner the Second, am not worth the price of a good shit.