Cry Havoc

Seventeen year old Rebekka Mark isn’t prepared to be worth nearly a billion dollars just before her eighteenth birthday. But when her father is murdered, he leaves her everything. Harder to deal with is knowing she is the only one who has seen her father’s killer – and her mom is sleeping with Rebekka’s prime suspect. Now everyone is her best friend, and behind every smile lies a threat.

Trapped on a Caribbean island with all the right suspects and a ghost who appears to be her father, Rebekka has to discover the murderer’s identity. Add the complications of two boys who may or may not be the enemy, and this trip to the islands may just be to die for.

CRY HAVOC is a young adult thriller loosely based on Shakespeare’s HAMLET and is complete at 71,000 words.

Everyone should greet death with a smile. Robert Mark does just that, shooting me his famous, thousand-dollar grin as I walk into the study. My fingers caress the cool metal of the blade in my pocket. One fingernail catches the edge and snags. My heart races. But there’s no pain. I didn’t cut myself. That would be a foolish mistake.

I’m not foolish. No matter what others may think.

I will my heartbeat to slow. Don’t want him to hear it. He could, of course. The great Robert Mark can do so many things. Knows so many things.

Ah, but he doesn’t know this. That he’s flashed his last smile. Downed his last scotch and soda. Sad, really. So many things he doesn’t realize he’ll miss.

My eyes stray to the clock. Almost time.

“The party is going well. Based on how many empty champagne bottles, I’d say it’s going very well,” he says.

I laugh. He doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. He’s too comfortable. Fallen asleep on the job. What job? All of them.

“What about you?” he asks. “What do you think of this year’s extravaganza?”

“It’s to die for,” I tell him. I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face. He turns away, reaches across his desk.

I slide the wooden knife handle into my palm. It’s warm, heavier than I expected. The weight of the intention and expectation I’ve attached to it, perhaps.

Do I do it now? No. Not in the back. Face to face. He should see what’s happening. Who it is that’s done this to him.

I want to see his face. I can handle it.

I hold the knife by my side, relax my grip a little. He turns around, ready smile in place again. There are shadows in his eyes though. I wonder if he senses the end. It’s a false expression. A boardroom smile.

Anger flashes through me, rising from my toes to explode from my fingers. I bring the knife up and down again into his throat. No time to scream or beg. He crumples, drops his glass of liquor onto the carpet. A death rattle vibrates his chest, but his eyes don’t leave me. They stare. I want to see hatred there. Fear. Despair.

There’s just infinite sadness and surprise and maybe even a little… I don’t know. It’s like he knows, maybe even understands.

Fear and repulsion swirl with the fascination of what I’ve done. I study the blade in my hand, admire the graceful, scarlet symmetry of it.

The rattling breaths are shallow now. Nearly done.

A noise sends me whirling. There’s a crack in the door to the library that wasn’t there before. The shining reflection of silk and jewelry in the darkness.

Panic roots me to the spot for a moment. Someone has seen. But the angle… could they have missed the details? There are no lights on, and firelight is a poor illuminator.

Spinning on my heel, I turn to the door. The knife hums in my grip. The first time is always the hardest, they say. This might even work out better. It’s a puzzle for me to solve.

I’m good at problem solving.