Deliver Me From Evil. Mary Monroe

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      My acknowledgments would be as long as this book if I thanked each person individually for my success. And even then I am sure I’d overlook somebody. The last time everybody except my ex-husband wanted to know why I didn’t thank them for something. My mechanic pouted for days.

      So to make everybody happy this time (I hope) I’d like to thank all of the following for helping me make it to the New York Times bestseller list: My relatives, friends, former co-workers, ex-boyfriends, former bosses, former teachers, neighbors, my dry cleaner, my paperboy, my cellmate during my “visit” to juvenile hall a gazzillion years ago, my former classmates, my eye doctor, my gynecologist, my bartender, my mailman, my pharmacist, the waitresses at Nellie’s Soul Food restaurant in Oakland, my writer/sister Debra Phillips, and especially my mechanic.

      To Andrew Stuart: You are a super literary agent! Without you I’d probably still be collecting rejection slips.

      To Karen Thomas: Thank you for editing my previous books so well. You turned my ugly ducklings into swans.

      To EVERYONE at Kensington Books: You all continue to make me feel special and appreciated. In some ways you feel more like family to me than my real family. (I know that a lot of my relatives are going to chastise me for saying this, but it is true.)

      To L. Peggy Hicks at Tri-Com and all the wonderful folks who work with you: Thank you for arranging my fun-filled book tours, interviews and public appearances. I hope I don’t sound greedy, but a few days in Hawaii on the next tour would be nice (hint, hint …).

      To the book clubs and bookstores: Your support is sincerely appreciated. On last year’s tour my flight from Houston to Dallas was several hours late, making me miss my reading/signing at Black Images Book Bazaar—or so I thought. When my driver took me to the bookstore anyway to sign stock, I was surprised and pleased beyond belief to see that the audience had waited all that time for me anyway. Support like that is priceless.

      I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of my local bookstore supporters. Blanche Richardson at MarcusBooks in Oakland is one of the most important people in the business, and if you are lucky enough to have her in your corner, you are truly blessed! Jerry Thompson at Cody’s Books in Berkeley is and has always been a very special person in my life. Bernard Henderson at Alexander Books in San Francisco is such a rich and colorful character, I’d like to be the one to write his biography.

      Please visit my Web site at www.Marymonroe.org and sign my guestbook and/or send me a personal e-mail at [email protected].

      Peace and blessings,

      Mary Monroe

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 13

      CHAPTER 14

      CHAPTER 15

      CHAPTER 16

      CHAPTER 17

      CHAPTER 18

      CHAPTER 19

      CHAPTER 20

      CHAPTER 21

      CHAPTER 22

      CHAPTER 23

      CHAPTER 24

      CHAPTER 25

      CHAPTER 26

      CHAPTER 27

      CHAPTER 28

      CHAPTER 29

      CHAPTER 30

      CHAPTER 31

      CHAPTER 32

      CHAPTER 33

      CHAPTER 34

      CHAPTER 35

      CHAPTER 36

      CHAPTER 37

      CHAPTER 38

      CHAPTER 39

      CHAPTER 40

      CHAPTER 41

      CHAPTER 42

      CHAPTER 43

      CHAPTER 44

      CHAPTER 45

      CHAPTER 46

      CHAPTER 47

      CHAPTER 48

      CHAPTER 49

      CHAPTER 50

      CHAPTER 51

      CHAPTER 52

      CHAPTER 53

      CHAPTER 54

      CHAPTER 55

      CHAPTER 56

      CHAPTER 57

      CHAPTER 58

      CHAPTER 59

      CHAPTER 60

      CHAPTER 61

      CHAPTER 62

      CHAPTER 63

      CHAPTER 64

      CHAPTER 1

      A crude tattoo on his right bicep told the world that his name was Wade. I recognized prison artwork when I saw it, but he didn’t look like a thug. At least not like any of the ones I knew. There were no grills of tacky-looking gold teeth decorating his mouth like stale corn. There was no thick gold chain wrapped around his neck like a noose. With his neatly trimmed jet-black hair; smoky gray eyes; sharp, handsome features; and a thin T-shirt and tight jeans hugging his well-developed body, he looked like a low-income Lenny Kravitz.

      Between sips from a can of Coors Light, he puffed on a thick blunt. A strong haze swirled around his head like a halo. It was some pretty good shit, too. I welcomed the immediate buzz I got from inhaling the secondhand smoke. I hadn’t smelled weed this strong and sweet since I was a teenager, more than ten years ago. But within seconds that halo around his head turned into a dark cloud and was moving in my direction.